[AU] Some Terminology, Locations, Brief Overviews of Several Ponies, and an Excerpt of Lore

Herd, Equestrian, Crystal Empire: 1.) A group of ponies all led by one or a hoof-full of central mares called matriarchs. 2.) A family where the oldest living mare is in a leadership role. 3.) A relationship between a stallion and two or more mares. (Archaic) Herd, Outside Equestrian Lands: 1.) A term for any group configuration of ponies with the leadership role being either a mare or a stallion. 2.) A relationship between a stallion and two or more mares. Matriarch, Equestrian, Crystal Empire: 1.) The oldest living mare in a family. 2.) A mare in a familial unit that is in charge of most household duties, especially finances and protection of family members. Changeling Hivemind: A changeling's hive is how they survive. Without a hivemind to connect to a changeling is alone and vulnerable. They can survive without a hivemind, but if they want to have any nymphs they must connect with another changeling (or a pony, potentially) as their magic will not allow them to do so if they haven't. A changeling's hivemind is how they thrive. It is how they grow, communicate, and learn. They do not have their own spoken languages in a verbal sense but instead have written languages. These languages reflect their hivemind and may vary wildly between them. Mind Net, Fire Hives: The term they use for the hiveminds that all of these former human minds are now a part of. Hiveminds do not typically form in this way, but hives are also not typically structured in the way that theirs are with blood relations between any two or more changelings being the exception to the rule instead of the norm. That, combined with their spoken languages influencing their Mind Net and indeed having a spoken language of their own at all, differentiates them from other hives. Not even mentioning the differences in their love collection methods because that would take all day. _____ Canaryda - Canada: Modern Griffin nation Griffiania - Griffin nation that once controlled Canaryda territory Cranelaw, Storkney, Yolk, Ducklin, Soarmandy - Shrike-ing Age Griffin countries _____ Jade: Mare, Crystal Pegasus White coat and feathers, Purple mane and tail, Ice blue-white hooves and crystal markings, Yggdrasil mark (Right Side Only) Firefly: Mare, Changeling Hive Queen Grey coat, Yellow-green chitin, Yellow-green accent coloring and magic, Pale yellow-orange mane and tail Firelight: Mare, Changeling Hive Queen Pale grey coat, dark grey chitin, Amber orange-brown accent coloring and magic, Orange-red mane, wings and tail Firestorm: Mare, Changeling Hive Queen White coat, light grey chitin, Royal blue accent coloring and magic, Light blue mane, wings and tail Note: For Changelings, their wings are forms of solidified magic that they store within the elytra on their backs. Some changelings have a 'sealed' elytra or an 'empty elytra' and are unable to form these wings and be incapable of flight. Firelight is amongst this number with a sealed elytra. Note: Changeling Hives are typically made up of the Queen and her children, as well as their children and grandchildren if the Queen allows it. In this way a hive can be identified by their accent coloring alone. With these three Hives, it is far more unusual to have changelings be related to each other and thus holds a color wheel's worth of variety. They may be connected by their Queen and Mind Net but that is the extent of it. Petra: Mare, Earth Pony Wishbane: Stallion, Unicorn Pyrite and Pyrope: Stallion and Mare, Kirin Twins Siren: Nonbinary, Thestral Windfall: Mare, Pegasus Scarab and Scorpio: Mares, Changeling Siblings both a part of the Firelight Hive. _____ Jade Excerpt of Trial 1: Break Free of the Griffins Contents include: Mentions of bandits who do what bandits often do (steal things, steal people, murder, destroy stuff, the whole nine yards even though some of the more unpleasant things will not be mentioned here). Mentions of death and disease, implied malnutrition and starvation, one non-graphic fatal injury, and whatever it’s called when there’s one sapient creature that eats another sapient creature of a different species. The first inscribed jade tablet created by this newborn herd of roughly five hundred ponies wasn't very wide, though it more than made up for that in it’s height, or length. It had taken Jade, one of the crystalline ponies, a lot of energy to do it and the inner light that energy generated had dimmed. After the tablet’s creation it was more akin to a candle flame that one might use to read by or get around the house at night. The tablet was then carved into using smaller stone or crystalline tools crafted by other crystalline ponies and their normal looking earthen kin. It took time and precision and squinting in the lowlight of too cramped, too small rooms, but they’d written down, finally, some very important information. We are still human. That was the only thing it said, in around half a dozen languages not including the braille featured at the bottom. The first command to remember that they’d once been something else in body and still were so in spirit. With this land and it’s weeks-long repetitive cycle of time and the adversaries they faced above them, it would be an all too easy thing to forget. Especially for the children. Everyone here had come from all over. From rural China to homesteads and small suburbs in America to other remote places throughout their mother world that the bandit clan could easily raid. They’d all been taken here to an old mountain factory built overtop the underground tunnels and rooms of an even older prison. It had suited the griffins just fine when they had arrived as they’d been planning to simply use this as a rest stop. One thing led to another, decisions had been made that the herd were not stealthy enough to listen in on, but the result was clear that they’d stay. One week in and the herd found out it was because the griffins could not go past a specific point to their north and the surrounding area was too inhospitable to venture out on long journeys. Their supplies were too low for the number they now had to support so the griffins… well in the minds of several in the herd the “bird-cats” had gone crazy. Someone at the top ordered a conversion of one chunk of the factory space to be turned into a farm. The ponies would make their own food and ration it out how they saw fit, while the griffins got their provisions. Two weeks in and the food, the clothing, every item not on someone’s body replenished to the state it had been in at the beginning of those same two weeks. It took a while for everyone to grasp that it was only resetting back to a specific point and not doubling, or being magically sent over. The types of items never changed. The weather never changed. The same tunnel would buckle and collapse if supports weren’t put in place every time. The work that they didn’t, or couldn’t, pour their newfound, budding magic into had to be done again and again. Those earliest days had been tense. In part it had been from the atmosphere and that one griffin that actually snapped and got one pony killed. That mare had lost a foreleg and no one had any way to help treat the injury at the time. She had gotten an infection in what remained of her shoulder and while no one wanted to be around her to potentially catch something themselves, very few had wanted to leave her alone to die. Thankfully, that griffin had been punished. It hadn’t been them getting thrown out into the freezing winter wind and snow, but they might as well have been. The other part had been due to a lack of communication. Turns out it was hard to understand someone else when you didn’t speak, or even understand, the same language, and having a looming presence that demanded you comply with whatever orders you could barely piece together yourself did not, at all, help the matter. The only reason they hadn’t torn apart and divided along those language barriers had been due to that presence and the fact that there wasn’t any physical space to widen the cracks. And so Jade in what she would later recall only as a spur of the moment fit of madness, formed a slab of jadeite stone and asked around for or otherwise hunted down ponies capable of translation to and from as many languages as possible. They needed some way to communicate, and luckily for everyone amongst the translators and interpreters there were two that knew the sign forms of two different languages. It wasn’t perfect by any means as they now had hooves instead of more dexterous fingers or even claws like the griffins had, but it did work as a start for something new to be born and evolve over the next thousand years. 1. We are still human, in spirit, if not in body. 2. We will find a way home for those who wish to return. (This line has since been crossed out) 3. We will create a home for those who wish to stay. (The latter part of this has also been crossed out so that all that is visible is ‘We will create a home’ and carved hastily next to it in one of the languages is an additional ‘For we have lost ours’. The grooves and stone around it are stained with red.) 4. We will protect one another. (Next to it are characters in one of the other written languages that spell out F- You.)