QUOTE (CanRay @ Jun 15 2012, 01:35 PM)
Could be worse. Those ghouls I keep killing could sparkle.
I think the bounty actually goes up if you kill a ghoul which sparkles.
QUOTE (Tymeaus Jalynsfein @ Jun 15 2012, 02:31 PM)
Heh... May do that...
Well, I linked you previously to the pilot episode,
Friendship is Magic, Part 1: The Mare in the Moon. Here is
Friendship is Magic, Part 2: The Elements of Harmony.
The names may sound cheesy, but let me put it this way:
[ Spoiler ]
In the first episode, an apprentice wizard who has dedicated her entire life since youth to study in the library of her master discovers a terrible omen that an evil which was sealed away one thousand years ago is due to be released in two days' time. She takes this urgent warning to her master, who dismisses it as being unimportant, chastises her pupil's utter dearth of a social life, sending the apprentice to a farming community where this year's festival marking the summer equinox celebration will be held, with an admonition to "make some friends!" Unfortunately, it is that very event, the one thousandth summer equinox since the imprisonment of said ancient evil, is exactly the event which shall release her, which is the why apprentice wizard is panicing.
She dutifully heads to the town, but urgently; she wants to do as little as possible in the way of assuring the celebration preparation is in order, because, you know, ancient evil returning, and it seems that every other living person is dismissing it as an old wives' tale and a story for children. The first person she meets in the town lets out a shriek upon seeing her and flees, prompting her to despair, as she rushes about her business. The first order thereof is to oversee the food preparations, so she goes to the local farm where it's being contracted. She meets the bright, ferociously athletic and warm-hearted farm manager, and about thirty or forty of her closest relations, who stuff her full of food and convince her well that the food situation is handled.
Next on the order of business is the matter of the weather; for this is a magical land where the monarch can command the weather, and it would not do for there to be so much as a single cloud in the sky, let alone for the weather to be inclement. She meets the local weather manager, a braggart, athletic show-off who takes her job rather lackadaisically because when she's not applying herself to the task of training to join the kingdom's group of elite athlete-warriors, she's usually lazing around. The apprentice is horrified to find the sky full of clouds, but the weather manager laughs at her concerns; the monarch won't arrive until the time of dawn tomorrow, and she can clear the sky in ten. seconds. flat. When challenged to prove this, she zips straight into action (get a stopwatch,) and does, in fact, clear the skies in precisely ten seconds.
The demonstration did, however result in her getting very muddy when the weather manager crashed into her, and subsequently she was cleaned by being soaked by a localized downpour that the weather controller summoned to clean her off. Satisfied that the weather situation was handled, but exasperated by her now-soaked state, the apprentice magician trudges on to meet the one charged with the decorations and organizations.
She meets her, in the huge, circular town hall - speaking with a refined (one might even say unique) accent, the town's dressmaker is no mere seamstress, she is an artiste with needle and thread, beautiful in her own right, capable of cantrip magic, a fashion innovator and status-conscious social climber whose goal in life is to climb the social ladder, catch the eye of a member of the nobility, and be wed royally. No-one else in the town could possibly be preparing the town hall for a meeting with the monarch of the kingdom, after all. She is doing a fantastic and dedicated job, and clearly knows her trades well, but is horrified by the state of the apprentice when she sees her, bundling her off and immediately dragging her away from the decorations to her shop (which is within eyesight) to clean her up, and attempt to fit the struggling apprentice with a beautiful dress to wear when the monarch arrives.
The apprentice is satisfied that the decorations are proceeding well, but flees from the dressmaker's shop when she goes to fetch a different color of gem to sew into the fabric, as she doesn't have time for fashion. She hurries on to the last part of the celebration preparations, the choir; for this, she needs to meet the local druid, an exceptionally shy young woman who can speak with animals and is conducting a choir of songbirds in practice. Though she can hardly get a word out of the painfully shy druidess, she can easily hear that the song is working, and attempts to hurry on, to the town library, which her master arranged to have made into her home as well, so she can start researching the ancient evil which is due to awaken, and more importantly, ways to stop it!
When she tries to leave, though, her familiar reappears from an errand; a sapient baby dragon who can speak, he gets the shy druidess' attention, and she follows the apprentice magician all the way home, chatting the whole while with her familiar, proving that she's quite gregarious and personable with animals, or people she's comfortable with. Dismissing her as politely as she can by claiming she has to put her baby dragon to bed, the magician hurries into the library, shutting the door, intent on getting in a good night of research. When the lights come up, however, she hears a shout of "Surprise!"
The first person she met was the town's party animal and social soul, who reacted in shock and horror at seeing someone new - because she hadn't had a chance to plan their welcome party! She immediately tore off through the town to acquire supplies and deliver invitations - a thoughtful gesture, but wholly lost on the frustrated apprentice magician, who only wants to get some research done on the topic of the looming danger.
Unable to do any research with a party going on, the apprentice puts in as little time as is barely socially acceptable, and slinks upstairs to go to sleep, though it is hard. Her apprentice wakes her early in the morning, to come to the celebration, where her monarch - that same magical master who told her to come to the farming community in the first place - is due to arrive, to herald in the dawn. Reluctantly she does go, but ominously notices that the pattern of crates in the moon's surface which forms a face has vanished utterly.
Predictably, in lieu of the monarch's appearance, the ancient evil - an ancient queen of the kingdom, banished by her own sister - has returned, to announce that eternal night shall be the hallmark of her new reign! The monarch's loyal guards attack her, but she sends them scattering with a burst of lightning; the farm manager has to restrain the weather controller from doing the same thing, while the town party animal hurls insults at the laughing evil queen, who departs in a mist of fog after announcing her new reign.
The apprentice magician declares that the evil one must be stopped if they ever want to see their monarch and the sun again, and rushes to the library to research the solution. The only ones brave enough to follow her are the ones she met yesterday, and they quickly find what they need - six magical artifacts, five of which are located deep in a shunned forest full of dangerous wildlife, inside a ruined old castle that was, once upon a time, the home of that very same evil queen and her sister, the one who banished her. It's a dangerous place, none of the town's guards or the royal guards who were in the community for the celebration, to say nothing else of the rest of the town's inhabitants, are remotely willing to venture inside. It's up to the apprentice magician, the farmgirl, weather controller, the socially-conscious dressmaker with minor magics at her command, the painfully shy and peaceful druidess, and the town's wild party animal, to save the entire kingdom. Gods help them all, they're going to try.
If that sounds like it could be the opening of a D&D campaign, that's because it has all the proper elements of meeting a group, building up to a dastardly reveal, and the heroic adventurers deciding to do something about it.
They just happen to all be members of the taxonomic family
Equidae and have the names Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie.