History TabletopGame / Ponyfinder

* PragmaticVillainy: Apep is a DestroyerDeity who desire nothing more than to bring ruin, death, and destruction to the world and, should he be freed from his imprisonment, will rampage across the mortal plane at will and annihilate everything that he comes across. However, he does not wish to completely destroy the world, and checks his rampages so that life has a chance to recover and rebuild in the areas that he's razed before he comes around again -- after all, if he ended the world for good, he would have nothing left to enjoy destroying in the future, now would he?

** Steelhearts are a borderline case, consisting of cores living wood surrounded by mechanical shells. They are not born, but manufactured in factories by a pair of "parents" with the aid of priests.

** Most of the deities of the corebook are clearly based on the fan-accepted "gods" of the G4 cast; Sun Queen (Princess Celestia), Moon Princess (Princess Luna), Princess Luminace (alicorn!Twilight Sparkle), the Night Mare (Nightmare Moon), the Unspoken (Discord), and Kara (Queen Chrysalis -- though Queen Chrysalis's insectile appearance is instead applied to Kara's agent Temptation and to her original Hive Queen aspect).

** The Unspoken used to be a mortal pony scholar who sought to halt the rapidly ongoing fragmentation of ponykind, fearing its eventual dissolution into millions of unique beings with no ties to one another. He managed to stop it but found that the chaos behind these changes was somehow redirect into him, turning him a god of chaos, change and disorder.

* BalefulPolymorph: In addition to the base spell, chaos hunters can permanently transform chaotic creatures into ponies of a random tribe if they can pin them down with a grapple.

* MachineWorship: The steelhearts mainly worship the Maze, a god they perceive as a universe-spanning system of physical and metaphysical machinery that contains and orders all natural processes in creation -- everything, from the smallest spring and tendon to the movements of the sun and moon, is simply a greater or lesser component operating within the god-machine's transcendent whole.
* MagicEater: The flutterponies descend from the flutters, insect-like fey that fed on magic and descended in swarms to devour any source of it that they could find, including living beings.
* MagicHair: The manes and tails of ghost ponies are swirling clouds of ethereal mist.
* MechanicalLifeforms:
** Clockworks are ponies made entirely out of gears, cogs, pulleys and sliding plates. They were once flesh-and-blood ponies, but magic and hubris cursed them into bodies of living metal. They reproduce normally, due to the gods granting them bodies of flesh for one day of every year.
** Steelhearts are a borderline case, consisting of cores living wood surrounded by mechanical shells. They are not born, but manufactured in factories by a pair of "parents" with the aid of priests.

** Vulponies, whilst often mistaken for a pony/{{kitsune}} crossbreed, are actually an entirely separate race of fey fox-ponies who evolved alongside both races.

* NonHumanHumanoidHybrid: ''Many'' of the quadrupedal fey races of the Everglow can successfully interbreed, with the most notable examples being ponies with purrsians, ponies with ruminants, ponies with dragons (the origin of drakehooves) and ponies with griffons, to create hippogriffs.
** Zigzagged with the cow-like krava; they ''can'' interbreed with ponies or other fey quadrupeds, but their children will randomly be either pure krava or pure... whatever the other parent is.
** Despite often being assumed to be pony/{{kitsune}} hybrids, vulponies are actually ''not'' this.
** Subverted with donkeys, who are noted to be incapable of producing offspring with non-donkeys, something that further alienates them from ponykind.

The game is set in the [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Equestria]]{{expy}} of Everglow, a particularly magic-rich world where, in addition to the standard array of humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, etcetera, a [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces vast number of sapient fey animals]] have developed. The ponies of this world, under the reign of Queen Iliana, the first [[WingedUnicorn Alicorn]], have founded the first and mightiest empire of the world. But this empire will not last forever... unless the [=PCs=] say otherwise.

The game is set in the Equestria {{expy}} of Everglow, a particularly magic-rich world where, in addition to the standard array of humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, etcetera, a [[LoadsAndLoadsOfRaces vast number of sapient fey animals]] have developed. The ponies of this world, under the reign of Queen Iliana, the first [[WingedUnicorn Alicorn]], have founded the first and mightiest empire of the world. But this empire will not last forever... unless the [=PCs=] say otherwise.

''Ponyfinder'' is a fanmade roleplaying game campaign setting created by David Silver, head of the indy RPG company Silver Games LLC and published through the [=DriveThruRPG=] website. As the name implies, it originally used ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' rules; a version for the 5th edition of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' was later released hearing the subtitle ''Dawn of the Fifth Age''. (A free conversion document for 4th edition ''D&D'' was also released.)

*** Pony Subtribes: these are more spiritual/mystical offshoots to the "main" tribes. The current subtribes statted are chaos hunters (born with the power and compulsion to fight Chaotic creatures), clockworks (cursed ponies transformed into beings of living clockwork mechanisms), doppelgangers (equine shapeshifters), gem ponies (crystal-pelted heirs to a lost kingdom), anteans (giant ponies who reach 14-16 feet in length), and the tribe of bones (necroticially infused ponies with a connection to the dead).

** Griffons, a race of avian/feline hybrid quadrapeds. They received a basic profile in the corebook, and then a splatbook of their own, which reveals they divide themselves between a number of different aspects, which affect their avian traits, feline traits, or both. Default griffons are Predator aspects, whilst other aspects include Cheetah (more ground focused, faster running speed), Cursed (crystaline growths across the body that cause great pain and weakness, but enhance endurance and psionic ability), Prey (less adept in melee, but better spellcasters and more charismatic), Pride (more socially focused and diplomatic), Scavenger (more focused on cunning), Sea (otter back half, adept in water as well as land and air) and Snow (adapted for cold environments). Unlike ponykind, griffons can only have one aspect.

** The famous historical figure Shifting Wind is a magically transformed hybrid of pegasus and kitsune, leading to a somewhat vulpine-looking pegasus with multiple lashing fox tails.
** Satyrs are human with some extra traits from the waist up and a pony, purrsian or ruminant from the waist down.

* CrapsaccharineWorld: Everglow may ''look'' shiny and happy, but there's a layer of grimdark beneath the surface. The setting explicitly includes most if not all of the various monsters from ''Pathfinder'', the beloved queen is a WellIntentionedExtremist responsible for the deaths of two pony tribes that we know of, humanoids in the "present" are subtly discriminated against, and the Empire is explicitly power-hungry and doomed to succumb to its own corruption.

** Blaze is a secondary sun goddess, mainly associated with the sun's scorching flames heat and its destructive potential.

* GodOfFire: Blaze, the god of the sun's destructive power, is primarily associated with fire. She radiates heat life a bonfire, and grants her worshippers the ability to temporarily shroud their weapons in flame.

** To ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}''; Steelhearts, as mentioned above, are basically "pony Warforged", whilst the doppelganger sub-tribe is visually styled after Eberron's changelings.

* NiceIsNotGood: This is why neither Soft Whisper (Death Goddess) nor Lashtada (Love Goddess) from ''Forgotten Gods of Everglow'' is Good in alignment. Soft Whisper is a gentle deity, but she will also brook no arguments; a soul ''must'' accept that their time is up and move on, lest they become an undead monster. Lashtada, meanwhile, values love over all things and so cares only that it is allowed to bloom; the sourcebook explicitly notes that Lashtada will support a tyrant who at least allows their people to love freely over a kind ruler who nonetheless insists upon enforcing the policy of {{Arranged Marriage}}s, as the concept of "forcing love" in such a way offends her.

* HotSkittyOnWailordAction: Intertribal romance is common, explaining the flexibility of the tribe/sub-tribe ruleset. InterspeciesRomance is rare, but not unheard of, and can happen among species with considerable physically differences from one another; pony satyrs (human/pony) are statted in the ''Forgotten Gods of Everglow'' sourcebook, and the same sourcebook also mentions hippogriffs (griffon/pony), who get stats of their own in the griffon sourcebook. The ''Forgotten Past'' sourcebook adds purrsian satyrs, which come in purrsian/human and purrsian/pony formats.

* HotSkittyOnWailordAction: Intertribal romance is common, explaining the flexibility of the tribe/sub-tribe ruleset. InterspeciesRomance is rare, but not unheard of; Pony Satyrs (human/pony) are statted in the Forgotten Gods of Everglow sourcebook, and the same sourcebook also mentions Hippogriffs (griffon/pony), who get stats of their own in the griffon sourcebook. The Forgotten Past sourcebook adds "Purrsian Satyrs", which come in purrsian/human and purrsian/pony formats.