Character Generation

Character Concept Policies

Thinking about a character? Awesome! We have some guidelines here for you to keep in mind while you think about it! Feel free to talk to any of our staffers - or even any of our players - if you need help integrating your character concept into our world. We love to help!

Concepts

Keep your concept within the realm of believability as determined by the show. No ponies from outer space, no robots, et cetera. Please note: even though time travel is canon by show standards, it's only attemptable by extremely high level magic users, and even still, only able to go back a few days at best. It is not permitted on game outside of staff-run plots.

Talents and Power

We're a low-powered game. This means that although your character can be good in their field, they cannot be the best. We focus far more on characterization and interaction than we do on powers and abilities. Please make sure your character has room to grow in their talents: it makes for a better story!

Also, please note that any talent that has to do with magic will need to be thoroughly checked with staff to be certain it fits the theme in scope and flavor.

Naming

Please use the show as your guiding star for naming ponies. We have a section on names in the policies page just for that! Still stumped? check out +ponynamer on-game.

Connections with Canon Characters

Connections with canon characters are prohibited. You may not be Luna's former guard, Applejack's distant cousin, or Octavia's secret lover. It's lazy. Surely you can come up with something better!

Expies and Self-Inserts

You may create a character inspired by other media, but the resulting pony must be a character in their own right. They also must be altered to fit within our theme. Ideally, no one would know they were a character elsewhere first!

You may also transfer in characters you've played on other MU*s or roleplays! But do keep in mind that characters tend to accumulate a lot of power over the course of most roleplay games, and when you bring them here you may need to trim them down significantly. The same rule applies as well that they need to be altered to fit the theme. Once again, use them for inspiration rather than expect to play the character exactly.

Finally, self-inserts! Self-inserts are characters who represent you, specifically. They're often "ponysonas" that you may have used for roleplay elsewhere. We heavily frown on self-inserts for a number of reasons. Of course, everyone puts a little of themselves in every character they create — that is certainly fine! But unfortunately, playing a character who actually represents you makes it difficult to have emotional distance from it. Bad things can happen to characters on this MUSH — whether it be crazy plot happenstance or even just another's character strongly disliking yours. You may think you're immune but we've seen it happen a lot. So, unfortunately, no self-inserts are allowed.

Antagonists

Want to play an antagonist? Take a look at our antagonists page! The long and short of it is that you can play silly or low-powered antagonists, but you must expect to fail frequently in the face of Heroes, and come to terms with the fact that most characters, ICly, won't like you. Antagonists work best when there's a plot to work around them.

We do not allow players to create antagonists as their first character.

Recommended Concepts

There are all kinds of concepts you can play here, and we encourage people to pick a concept that they want to play above all else. If you want to know what we're "low" on (we're really not all that worried about balance), feel free to check out +census.

In the meantime, here are concepts that work well with our setting:

  • Ex-bad guys work well here; this is a place of new beginnings.
  • Traders and merchants — shady or legitimate. Seeing as this is a port town, we get lots and lots of trade going through here.
  • Explorers are well-received, especially given the impossible-to-explore Wintersong Forest and the tangle of the White Saddle Mountains.
  • Newcomers are all over here! Very few of our characters are Horseshoe Harbor natives, in fact, so don't worry too much about that!
  • … and just about anything else you can come up with! Within reason. Of course.

Secrets

We are not partial to secrets here on PonyMUSH, at least as far as wizards are concerned. While we understand that the theme and setting we've chosen leaves the door wide open for no-good mischievous liar ponies IC, OOCly we request that all of your character's secrets be on the table. There are, of course, exceptions, especially as they pertain to plots that you're running, or keeping players out of the loop for their enjoyment, but we request that if you have a secret your character is keeping that you run it by the wizards first.

It is important for us to keep tabs on what's going on on-grid, and with our population of players. If you fail to inform us of any ground-breaking secrets at character creation, either through a paged conversation or @mail, we will have to consider it as deliberately attempting to dupe or dodge the wizards, and disciplinary action will be taken accordingly. Thanks!

Age and Birthdays

Our dates here are organized by season, with roughly 91 days per season. (For more information, see the Celestine Calendar.) As such, birthdays are simply a season and a day.

Pony age as it's defined in the show is murky at best. On the one hand, if Granny Smith was present at the founding of Ponyville, and they've been doing traditional Winter Wrap-Up there for hundreds of years, it stands to reason that Granny Smith is several hundred years old. On the other hand, the Mane 6 are supposed to be between 12 and 18, according to Faust. So, with no hard and fast guidelines, we decided to simplify it.

Ponies CAN live up to around 300 years, given extraordinary circumstances. But for the most part, they live around 100 years, just like humans. They mature at the same rate as humans, hit adulthood about the same time as humans, and die at about the same time as humans. This makes it so our frame of reference is simple and easy to interpret across the board.

Sexes

I'm asked frequently why there's an 'other' option for sex. This is because I believe strongly in the validity of gender fluidity. Especially because sexual themes are absolutely banned on PonyMUSH and external genitalia are non-existent on ponies here, Sex is really more an identity than a biological construct beyond a few identifying characteristics (i.e. squarer muzzle for boys, etc).

We ask that you keep your roleplay of gender respectful, whether it be male, female, or something else entirely. Thanks!

- Fluttershy

Races

For the time being, we are restricting races simply to what has been seen on MLP:FiM. As the show continues, our world will continue to grow as the wizards and staff see fit. Until further notice, however, there will be no humans, no flutter-ponies, and so on; no anthro-ponies, either.

We do NOT and WILL NOT allow alicorns on the game. This is a low-powered game, with low-powered characters, and we want to keep the playing field even for all.

We allow zebras and griffons because of their involvement in the show, and because we find the way they fit into the world fascinating. As for seaponies, Lauren Faust had originally planned for there to be a seapony episode but for whatever reason, Hasbro declined her idea. Since we live on the harbor, we thought it appropriate to allow seaponies — but in order to allow for RP, our seaponies are like selkies, who can turn into sleek land ponies.

Few landlubbers even know the seaponies exist; fewer still know they can do this. It's more an old mare's tale akin to the Mare in the Moon. For more information, see the link below.

Batponies are a new addition as the result of a plot in fall of 2013. They largely live in the Bric-a-Brac Caverns in the White Saddles but have come out to explore the harbor.

As for other races — like Changelings and Dragons —we will not be implementing them at this time. By keeping our race list short, we can keep our policies looser and be less strict with our wizardly attention. If you really feel you must app one, please see our exotic race policy.

Earth Ponies - Sturdy ponies with a deep connection to the world around them
Unicorns - A race of single-horned ponies with finesse and overt magic.
Pegasi - Winged ponies who can work with weather and atmospheric magic.
Zebras - A striped race with magic that works with the earth and stars.
Griffons - Feathered predators who dedicate their lives to guilds.
Seaponies - Aquatic ponies who can shed their fins to walk on land.
Batponies - Bat-winged ponies who eat fruit and cave mold.

Chargen Process

Character bits can be created from the log-in screen. When you log-in, you'll be in the OOC lounge and from there, you can type CG to get into our character generation area, which will walk you through the whole process!

Once you're done, you're done! The staff might have a look at your character to make sure you aren't pulling out anything excessive, but it's a soft procedure rather than any ironclad set of rules. Once you've made your character, consider giving them an entry here on the wiki. We even have a guide for you. Isn't that nice? Also, feel free to use this creator to make a pony for your page!