Royal quest spoilers

 

Negra 'Waymaker' Wyrmheart (female unicorn), the sister of Blanca 'Wayfinder' Wyrmheart, comes to the royal court to petition funding for a more serious search party, hoping to find her dear little brother and bring him home to heal his mind. The players can choose between multiple forms of support (money, magic experts, or Mace) or refuse to help find him (unlikely). No matter what choice is made, Negra is doomed to fall into using dark magic herself at some point due to a strong bloodline affinity for it. Once her fall is discovered, nobility and peasants alike will suspect the risk of dark magic is in familial bloodlines (partially true, an ancestor who used dark magic- or alicorn- makes it much easier for descendants to use it), various things between accusing whole families of dark magic practice and using suspicion for political one-upsmanship will occur. May or may not have the temple of harmony take a strong stance to either persecute or ignore, forcing a choice to align the crown with the temples stance or deviate from it. Ensuing panic will last 2-3 years, and Negra will disappear for a time.

 

>First child with Fringe

Won't be custom aside from name, unicorn boy with white coat and (sapphire/jasper/turquoise/platinum[1]) mane, will grow into a well mannered colt with a good+ magic skill and a sensitive heart [figure out stat traits as time progresses]

 

>Blood ritual consequences (Part bloodline foe and all general foe)- should happen when Scarlet is about five or six

-Make sure this falls between major events and not during

Happens about midday, after MC does some normal castle stuff and has some time scheduled to spend time with Scarlet and Periwinkle alone (no guards or lovers). PC (should still be Carnelian unless the players made a really stupid choice). PC will hear Scarlet crying behind a closed door and open it. [post break, planned image should have Scarlet looking back from where she sits on the floor covered in blood, her body/hooves facing towards the still body of Periwinkle with her back facing the perspective, minimal blood pool over the tile steps in the room] PC will discover Scarlet had killed Periwinkle in a fit of furious hunger, and Scarlet herself will be confused and scared, unfamiliar with death and while unsure why Periwinkle isn't moving anymore will continue to cry and feel that something has gone horribly wrong. [likely need a post break, second image should be two panels, one of Scarlet hugging the MC and crying more, the second (if Carnelian) where the PC holds her close, shifting both positions and transferring blood onto Carnelian's clothing while she looks on into the distance in horror and fear] PC will begin to hear guards gathering outside the single entrance to investigate the crying. If Carnelian, no choice options will be given after 'what do' prompt to reflect the dread and lack of harmless choices. If playing as other blood charter character, give prompts as needed. Viable option range will be covering up the death in multiple ways, telling the guards there had been and accident and tampering with the body, handing Scarlet over to the guards, asking the guards to send a pony they'll make into an accomplice though the closed door such as Renew Fringe Bloody the masked pony or Mace or other idk, or taking the blame for the killing themselves. Scarlet will always lament her naive actions for the rest of her life, being very powerful but also being very sensitive to the pain and suffering she must cause for nourishment, resentful of the empty mare for her lifestyle. (No pulling punches this time! The players wanted to eat their cake and have it too, and so they shall). NPC suspicions will differ depending on action taken.

 

>Negra attack

-Revise as needed based on choices made about affinity bloodlines and castle security, or if Carnelian is no longer PC or if Sombra is no longer in player possession, revise Bloody injuries if taking full power path

After some time, about year 5 or 6 of reign, Negra will launch a surprise attack on the castle, teleporting right into the throne room and casting mass explosion spells, with no individual target in this phase, until that area of the castle is ruined and all fighters are incapacitated. Fringe will be knocked out with a severed horn, Bloody will be bleeding out, and Carnelian will be severely wounded with limited movement. Sombras horn will pulse, and when pulled out, will slip out of the handle to be attached to a pony, its influence overriding any other thought aside from using it for survival. Refusing to attach the horn to anypony will result in automatic failure where both Fringe and Bloody die, and Carnelian either abducted (If Blanca is alive) or killed (If Blanca is dead). Attaching it to Fringe will start the 'winter tyrant' path, killing Negra and saving Bloody at the cost of Fringe's sanity [Fringe will fly off with ice wings to a northern deer territory not currently at war, and no communication will be available for that House until the conquest is complete] If attached to Bloody, Negra will die but Bloody will not be able to survive his injuries, Sombra's horn will slump off, and Fringe will live with a severed horn. If attached to Carnellian, Negra will die regardless of player choice due to Sombras influence, which will become a roll trait AND severe sanity penalty after the fight. Bloody will survive in a weakened state and Fringe will survive with a severed horn. The castle will need to have heavy repair after for 6-9 months.

 

>Where the timeline split

The time line diverges at Starlight Glimmers time-travel fight with Twilight. Instead of repeating the attempt until faced with the ash timeline, Glimmer instead changes her alteration of the timeline to force Celestia and Luna to corrupt close to the time anchor-point. Daybreaker destroys the spellpage and shatters the table, and Twilight barely manages to escape while Glimmer is killed in the ongoing fight between Daybreaker and Nightmare Moon. Twilight gathers her friends (the time line alteration only affected the prior week) but cannot contain both alicorns. After a second retreat, Twilight assesses the damage to Equestria and concludes a mass evacuation is needed, but cannot save Cadence or Shining (Flurry is sent away from the area) as NMM and Daybreaker moved their fight up north to contest rule over the crystal kingdom. Within a day she sends out a magic broadcast to the entire kingdom and neighboring powers that will be hit in the coming attacks, and a mass fleet of ships gathers at Manehattans docks to escape by sea. Once the ships are pack with as many creatures and supplies as possible, they launch, only to be chased by Daybreaker and NMM once they stop fighting long enough to figure out all their 'subjects' were escaping. The mane six try their best to counter attack while all other ponies aid in speeding up the ships as much as possible. Other power characters give their power to the counter-attack, including Chrysalis who chose to evacuate her entire hive (or starve at best if she stayed behind). Once Discord adds the full power of his chaos magic to the attack to protect Fluttershy, a 'complication' occurs. NMM and Daybreaker are both sealed into the moon and sun respectively, but the chaotic feedback of the harmony spell shatters Discord into various bits across various levels of reality and unreality, and five of the mane six are forced into the dream realm; Trixie saves Twilight at the last second and takes her place. However, nopony knows they were sent to the dream realm and they are assumed dead while the ships go over emergency repairs and casualties are tallied. At least one ship stays on an island chain on the voyage over to the west. Everypony makes landfall on the new continent, and sets up a mass settlement, managed by Twilight despite her deep need to mourn. A mutual bond of survival is made between Twilight and Chrysalis, becoming almost-friends, and changelings integrate into the new equestrian society in their default form, the feeding now seen as a chore like cooking or helping a friend. Contact is made with the native deer tribes, and New Equestria is formed, a kingdom of those who survived Starlight Glimmer arrogance, between the established lands where the deer and elk already have their own towns. Twilight becomes the ruler by default, with great difficulty without her close friends or more preparation, but overcomes her woes for the sake of everypony (and help from Spike and her other less close friends). [Everypony trapped in the dream realm is still getting the hang of it, appearing as misty apparitions that normal ponies can't identify in their dreams, takes a while to move past that as none of them have a natural talent for dream control] She meets Sunburst while doing queen shit, they hook up and pop out a couple of kids, none of whom are alicorns. Things are fine and dandy in the kingdom for a long time. Twilight has a happy relationship with Sunburst, she grows into peak alicorn while sunburst ages normally, and Twilight watches him die, accepting mortality as a fact of life, eased by the dreams she has of her friends- though she worries from time to time why she doesn't have such vivid dreams. After some study into lucid dreaming and some communication from the dreambound, Twilight discovers her friends didn't die after all. Some more time passes while Twilight does everything in her power to figure out how to bring them back, failing but comforted that her precious friends are safe from the passage of time. Then she watches as her children pass on from old age as well as the last of her original friend groups, and Spike and Flurry Heart fuck off to investigate other lands after Flurry has a premonition (figure all that out later). Then her grandchildren. By the time her great grandchildren are adults, Twilights resolve begins to falter in the long term and her internal outlook becomes bleak, and she spends more time sleeping and less time governing or bonding with her descendants to teach them critical life lessons. Eventually, she leaves a note proclaiming she's leaving the throne behind to her great grandchildren, specifically the oldest mare. Twilight seals herself in the deepest part of her castle, a secret underground chamber she used for enhancing her dreams for experimentation, and encased herself in crystal as to ensure she'll never wake and be separated from her friends again. Chaos ensues and within two decades the kingdom is destroyed in civil war over who would rule in Twilights absence, and the religious fervor that followed. New tribes are formed and isolate from each other, and the knowledge of what came before is lost to pain and time. One of the later descendants of Twilight establishes the new kingdom of Stella after uniting the tribes again, and builds a new castle over the ruins of the old one, buried like a massive funerary mound save for the highest towers. The first king of Stella explores the 'undercastle' until he finds the last chamber and Twilight. Realizing the importance, he builds all sorts of mazes and traps into the middle layers to ensure the secret would remain hidden to everypony but the royal family, then sets himself up to join her to attain a false immortality. Over time the castle is under siege, wrecked, and rebuilt over itself again and again. More ponies with royal blood rediscover the chamber and undercastle, and those who come back out would work to hide it away again, seeing a mass crystal with multiple bodies entombed like a fly trap let alone the lesser missing ponies who died in the undercastle strewn about. Twilight remains in an eternal dream, and though her friends insist it wasn't the right choice there is little they can do to stop her. As more time passes, the magic seals in the sun and moon weaken too, leaking into the dream world from time to time, letting Twilight convince herself staying in the dream is the right choice despite the numerous reports from those who join her and the tales her friends retell her from their own dream visits to the living. The rest of the dreambound do their best to guide the ponies of the new age as best they can, filling Luna's role as best as they can, but unable to help the alicorn who needs help the most, or stop those who would mistake them for deities.

 

>Possible good end states for the quest

The idea is to restore the world back to a state of full harmony among mortals, which requires outside help... or removing yourself from the problem one way or another

>Collect all pieces of Discord (Fluttershy has one piece at least, another bit may or may not have been found when the vault was either totally empty or at max capacity)

>Revive all of the ancient six (Find all statues and associated relics and have in one space)

>Find Twilight and convince her to wake up (max charm score or victorious dream battle against a very strong opponent)

>Join Twilight once found (Could go to next character or end there, depending on how long quest already is)

>Conquer or assimilate all nations on continent (boring and unlikely)

 

Post-note lightning round:

 

>Zyzmic had a motive aside from his own freedom from another creatures regime: His father was the once legendary Captain Blackwing, who fought against Stella in the pirate war but was discarded and forced into a life on land after his key victory crippled him, already married to an enslaved mare and was a terrible husband and father overall after that point. Zyzmic had an unconventional plan for his vengeance; to have a child who would inherit the kingdom of Stella, which he blamed for starting the war to begin with, then to destroy the pirates who doomed him to such a miserable life. A less conventional and drawn out plan but a very successful one up to the point the quest stops; if the players were controlling a male character, he'd be plotting to get a female noble he had already woo'd to usurp them instead. If things kept progressing they way they were, Zyzmic would have been content to let Carnelian do the leg work to clean up the pirate domination of the seas, then offer to combine their kingdoms if he could have a child with Carnelian who would become the monarch over the older children. This likely would have happened after the attack by Negra.

>Yes, Zyzmic was the one who put the hit on Bloody, before poly marriage was a viable option

>Chrysalis is still alive, very elderly and bleached white but still rules over her hive, always keeping her truce with Twilight in her heart even if she won't admit it; I do really regret not getting far enough in the plot for the players to interact with her but at the same time she was a direct and reliable witness to all the lore and asking her everything too soon would have taken some of the fun out of it

>Sticking Sombra's horn onto anypony but Fringe has them taken over and erased over time by Sombra's personality and bodily preferences; Fringe is the only exception for reasons but still grows into a powerful dark magic unicorn with false alicorn traits like a growth spurt and ice wings

>At some point Nymphadora was going to be called back to the Hive and not come back maybe, never finished that plan

>Another unfinished aspect was whatever happened to Spike and Flurry Heart, I never had a set idea for why they never came back but killing them off seemed cheap

>Golden Galehaut was going to be the most likely noble to challenge your rule but I never found a good angle to start that kind of problem so idk I didn't feel like expanding your to-do list with more vague and fruitless bullshit

>The whole kingdom was going to transition into a more victorian style setting with more art noveau aesthetics as a result of Grenadine's greater popularity and cultural hold but due to skill issues I could not convey that change anywhere near as much as I would have liked

>Hydro Breeze was discovering steam power and was due to re-invent steam engines once he got support for his inventions

>The Skypouncers plan for the citadel plans were that your kingdom either wouldn't be able to produce them or fail to make them hijack proof; their leaders overall plan was to block access to the mountain pass the kirins and zebra could trade though, wanting to keep a monopoly on all the possibilities that entailed

>They were 100% going to go to war with you for that tiny strip originally but I decided to have them introduce a dependency for peakleaf in your kingdom instead

>Mace was doomed to go insane or have his body break down if he didn't die in battle at some point

>One of the members of the previous royal family, Breeze Star, may or may not have actually been alive in secret (the one whos severed limb was found), but I never committed either way; looking at the blood charter would have forced me to pick which way to go on that

>Camellia was a difficulty to write around, sure the shared emotion mechanic was fun in some instances and added some problems to navigate as players but looking back I do regret not coming up with something a bit more fun and less of a keep-away solution, I planned to have her go away for a while once grown enough to study at a higher level but I was never able to plan a good arc for her and she deserved much better

>Dahlia Grace was going to sneak back into the castle and leave the Solarian Grimmoire on your bed. You did very well with her except for maybe the egg thing but oh well

>If you didn't free Dahlia of your own accord the orphans were going to have a hilarious amount of explosive materials to bust her out with- stored and planned in their little Riverbend shack left unentered- and free any other prisoners by accident

>On that same note, it's a very good thing you killed Rosesong- ooh, things would have gotten bad the moment she got loose, and after a certain point in time there would have been a small escape risk every month even without Dahlia's saving grace

>When Nymphadora would disappear, the orphan network would have worked as a valid replacement for Nymphadora's connection to the changeling network; you'd still have changeling spies but communicating with them would be much harder

>I didn't plan much more concrete things for Peony after her redemption but really liked keeping her around as a minor side character

>Cinder Elklight was going to come back to court to make request on behalf of the deer of the kingdom, but I wanted to give him some time to mature... then got distracted by other things

>I never really went into the deer magic more but I might keep that system for a future quest

>The Melody family was mega fucked up in ways they would never want exposed- what the players could do with than information was broadly between lots of blackmail to stripping them of their nobility to burning them at stakes

>Azure was originally going to secretly murder Everkeen to secure her own place as regent; I decided that was too mean to follow through with after you guys made her a co-advisor, but they were never going to hook up and at times would barely get along enough to do their jobs

>Zappazi the changeling magician was also going to be seriously trying to impersonate Carnelian but I thought better of it on the next update post and reeled it back to an overly playful joke

>The masked pony stayed at the castle to ensure the culture of the Passion Isles would become deeply rooted into your own kingdoms culture, and would have been very good at it; imagine your inlaws send over a family friend to your house and its the pope acting as an adult babysitter, religious powers gonna religious power. So long as he stayed, removing Bloody from his influences would be very difficult, let alone the ideas he'd feed Scarlet as she grew up

>The archeological excavations by the southern forest were going to be digging in what used to be a town that thrived shortly before New Equestria shit itself and got buried in a magical dust storm a while after

>The empty mare really was just a normal pony who accidentally died into deity-ship, I thought it'd be a fun little way to explain why vampires were a thing without all bat ponies being vampiric

>It took me an embarrassingly long time to write all this out and I know for a fact I'm forgetting a ton of stuff but I'll be around to provide any missed answers on my blogs (pf and t)