[AU] Names, Alicorns, Changelings, and Other Things

A List of Pre-Unification Deities and Beliefs Earth: The Spirits of Water, Harvest, and Rot (Three Spirits for the Birth, Life, and Death of All Things) Pegasus: The Four Winds (The Winds Will Guide You, If You’re Willing to Listen) Thestral: The Dreamer, The Echoes, The Dark (The Dreamer Protects, The Echoes Warn, The Dark Devours) Unicorn: The Great Loom, The Weavers (The Weavers Separate Sun from Moon, Day from Night, You from Me) Changeling: The Faceless, The Formless (One with Form but no Face, One with Face but no Form) Kirin: The Eternal Flame (That Ancient Fire that Destroys and Breathes New Life From Its Ashes) Crystal: The Mirror (Reflections and Shadows Ever Shifting in Form and Face Reflecting Possibilities Past and Future, and the Changes That Make Them Reality) Alicorns Sol Celestia: She/Her Nonbinary, Pegasus-Kirin-Earth The Unblinking Sun, Has extra pairs of eyes to see UV and infrared, and the last pair senses heat signatures. Her magic is not on the visible color spectrum and instead is infrared. Celestia does not use her magic very often as using it emits that kind of light and prolonged exposure, among other things, can cause the ponies around her to go blind. Luna Etherea: She/Her Female, Thestral-Earth-Unicorn The Blind Moon, Has no eyes to speak of and where eyes should be is smoothed fur. She uses her magic to sense her surroundings instead. Her magic is similarly in a light outside the visible spectrum, emitting radio waves which to other ponies is more sound than light. It's said to sound like static. Prolonged exposure can lead to burns and a rise in body temperature. Demi-Alicorns Cadence: She/Her Female, Pegasus-Unicorn. The base of her horn has grown over her eyes so she can no longer open them. Twilight: They/Them Female, Unicorn-Earth, A second tail is forming and the first is shifting to give the second the room it needs to grow. Jade: She/Her & They/Them Female [updated], Crystal-Pegasus, Has a small, secondary pair of wings at her neck that she uses primarily for stabilization in flight and changing direction. A third pair is growing behind the primary pair for additional aid in flight (and getting off the ground without much magic use). Names in Jade’s Herd come in three parts: The first part is your Firstborn name. The name you had from when you were a human on Earth. That name is spoken and known primarily by close friends, partners, and any family you have here that came with you or that you’ve made since. It is spoken by others in the herd but those outside (read: the Griffins) are not allowed to know. The practice started out of fear and turned into more like a True Name: a double-edged bit of magic that could let you control them if you knew it and chose to do so. The second part is the part of the name that’s spoken by everyone. Jade, for instance, has that as her Second Name. It’s a short, often on the nose descriptor of a name that lets everyone know who you’re talking to. Since there aren’t that many in the Herd and they aren’t spread out enough that records can’t be kept, the same name is rarely repeated more than twice. And the second is either coincidence or an intentional naming after someone else. The third part of the name shifts, depending on things you’ve done or personality traits that you have that you’re known for and on who is the one speaking to you. Your Third Name is not a surname, not in the human sense of the term in that it’s passed down. Instead it is earned again and again, changing as you grow, as you learn, and as you are known more closely by more and more people. Sometimes this name is widely used, sometimes it varies between individuals. Cocoa was the first foal born in the herd, and a few Third Names that she has are Sugar or Sweet (for a sweet and kind personality), Shadow (for her being a sneaky little thestral filly), and Spice (for another part of personality, specifically her sass). As she was born a thestral, her human name is not her Firstborn one, but is guarded just as fiercely. Some Third Names Jade has: Scribe, Bridge, Heart More changeling thoughts for the end of Spookytober - Changelings can shed their wings if they become too damaged, and can regrow them as they replenish their magic. - Some changelings in an Equus hive are born sterile, and live only to help keep their hives running and take care of the nymphs. - It is only after they pupate that a changeling can connect to the hivemind/mind net. - Changelings can feed on any type of love. Romantic love is thought to be addicting and attraction is potent, but short lived. A hive that feeds primarily on both of these is a dangerous one to have as a neighbor. - Some changeling hives employ the use of castes, with worker and soldier drones appearing distinct from each other as well as from their queen. - A changeling’s "tribal / species" magic is not limited to shape-changing, wall-crawling, occasionally venom or hypnosis, and unicorn spell-crafting. They may also utilize a form of magical alchemy: the ability to change other creatures and objects as easily as they can change themselves done so in a way that calls back to Zebra potioneering and ancient rune magic.