Set six years after season 6, Occupied Equestria presents an alternative history where the Changelings have conquered half of Equestria, while a former Equestrian colony - soured to Princess Twilight's notion of harmony with all creatures because of their encounters with griffins - Invaded and took the other half. In Baltimare and the Equestrian Southeast, the magic of friendship has weakened, as Communists, Changeling infiltrators, Fascists, gangs, and corrupt creepy politicians threaten the city. This role play is based in large part upon the Equestria at War mod for Hearts of Iron 4, and uses D&d 3.5e mechanics.
The long train ride to Bales is over, with Brie, Onyx, and Spark reaching their destination a little bruised but not dead or arrested. Before them lies a new and unfamiliar city and world, at the crossroads of Equestria's past and present, and also the Changeling Occupied Zone and East Equestria. In Baltimare, Dark Star prepares to set out on a mission to track down and arrest unfaithful and unreliable local law enforcement that have been leaking information to rebel forces. Silver may finally have a new toy he can use to clear the Catacombs of their undead presence. Iron, meanwhile, has drifted further into an temple in his search for a treasure sough by an archaeological expedition that was ambushed by bandits.
1817 replies and 157 files omitted.
>>102036Yeet. i got some food to eat first though.
>>102037Let me summon the motivation to write... like a lot. Or we could put a pin in that
>>102039Up to you. You're the one writing it, after all.
>>102036I don't have too long tonight, but I might be able to play a little.
>>102041Well then. Declare an action
>>102040Uh...
>>102042Well, with no money and nothing to my name other than Tipsy, I suppose I will take a stroll around the block and see what we are dealing with here.
>>102043I’m pretty sure shimmer received money. Anyways, the area is fairly urban, with most buildings being 3 or so stories. Brick buildings with shops on the lower level and apartments above are the norm
>>102044Do any of the shops stand out from the rest?
>>102046Well, I would suppose a smith or something. Something that an adventurer would find more appealing than a simple grocery.
>>102047Uh... sure? If you go far enough
>>102050Well... Dark Star now is in the abandoned house behind the two officers, who are ahead of him, do not see him, and have not yet heard him
>>102051Dark Star steps out into the area behind them and points his shotgun at them
"Freeze. Drop your batons."
>>102052Ruffles the fur of the ancient pony>>102053They look back at Dark Star, not quite yet in a fully defensive posture against him, with a look of puzzlement upon their faces
>>102054"Put Down The Batons."
He levels it at them
"We Are Gonna Have A Little Chat."
>>102055They eye Dark Star, and turn to him directly, taking now defensive postures
"And who are you?"
Skies is visible now behind them (from the direction they were formerly approaching)
\r
>>102056"It Doesn't matter who i am."
He Grins
"I Know What you did."
>>102057They eye him, but remain silent
>>102058Can i sense motive their body language?
>>102063Finally, the ancient pony will be able to move his old bones.
>>102066Oops Boomeed
Diplomacy
"I Know that you are a Dirty Rat. Just Come Clean"
>>102067They are not in much of a talking mood
So... i may have fallen a sleep last night.
Alright, so I’m going to give my analysis of the Zebrica leaks, since I found it last night
The first thing you should notice is that the continent is fucking huge. Just the big island of Macawia is bigger than Minotauria. Colthage must be bigger than Wingbardy, and Saddle Arabia seems to be as big as the entire Equestrian South East. I’ve heard it’s bigger than Equus and Griffonia combined. I don’t really like this. I understand the desire to expand the world to include non-western cultures, but Jesus, you can split it across two continents, and you can shrink this one at least 30%. As imagined now, I think it will kill computers.
In the North, we have the islands of Macawia, which is the land of the parrots we see in the MLP movie. We know from the Zebra colony focus tree that this country represents Brazilian culture, this far the mod’s one and only acknowledgement of the existence of South America or any Spanish or Portuguese culture
In the Far East, we have 4 Kirin nations - the Kirin Empire, Ngua Nam (Vietnam), Khamre (Probably Khmer (Cambodia)), and Kir Zang (Laos).
Further south are two nations that are probably Zebra, Zongo (Congo), and Idowu (seems to be an Igbo Nigerian name).
In the north we have what is my favorite part of Zebrica: Hindia, Chital, Sambar, and Stagpal, 4 evidently deer nations with very good puns for their names, that seem to represent South Asian culture. 10/10 for deer puns.
To the south and west of that we have a number of nations with Equine names that represent North African and central Asian cultures - Colthage (Carthage), Trotbet (Tibet), Marekand (Samarkand(Uzbekistan)), and Coltagatai (Probably Chagatai Khanate, a central Asian Turkic empire). I have no idea if these are pony, Kirin, Zebra, or hippogriff.
For a period of time I seriously contemplated sending the dev team a request to include a parallel to Rhodesia or South Africa in Zebrica to show independent nations under Pony minority rule. And they have it... kind of. They have Griffin colonies in the South. Griffin Free State (Orange Free State boer Republic), Talonsvaal (Transvaal Free State boer Republic), and the “Feathesian South Zebrides” (probably Dutch East Indies?) which suggests two independent Feathesian Griffin colonies, and one continuing colony in the south. Fucking Griffins... I want ponies, damn it!
There are more than a few nations that seem to be minor nations with races that exist no where else - Oryxia of the Oryx, Gazellia of the Gazelles, Giraffia, Camelia, and Hyenia. Oryxia and Gaxelia may just be deer states, but the rest really take up a lot of space and don’t need to exist, especially since camelia and Hyenia are each as big as Wingbardy.
Two neat big additions are the Centaur Kingdom and the Gargoyle kingdom, I guess to give Tirek and Scorpan homelands.
Then there are what we have actually been waiting for: the big Zebra nations. Near the center, we have Warzena, Zaramanetia, Zair (Zaire/DRC), Central Zebrican Empire (Central African Republic), Mazwi (Zimbabwe?), and what looks like a Rwanda-styled country in the middle of a civil war
The map further includes two nations from the show and comics - hippogriffia, which is located to the southeast of Equestria here rather than to the southwest as in the show map. It looks plausibly expanded. The second is the Kingdom of Abyssinia, which is the homeland of the anthro-cats from the movie. In the comics, Abyssinia is located on a continent called “Panthera” south of the Griffins. There are two nations nearby - stirry and maresopotamia - that have since been renamed Astyria and Sumeria. I suspect the former will be an anthro-cat nation by the name.
To the south we have the Stormleucid Empire (Seleucid Greek-Persia), the Gyzwindid Empire (one of those weird ancient central Asian countries), and the Thundarian Empire. Presumably these are countries of the race the Storm King is from. I think it’s kind of weird that it’s three distinct “Empires,” since presumably the storm king would have unified them.
A very large portion of the west is taken up by countries that seem to have Southwest Asian, Persian, and North African themes. All of them seem to be pony nations. These include Maregypt Not even close to as good as the Indian deer puns which may be the Sonambula of the show, and Timbucktu - a Pegasus cloud city sacked by Changelings in the comics. Its position in central Zebrica does not work well for that. We also see Saddle Arabia from the show.
There are two nations that seem to be based on mythical names for unicorns. “Re’em” is the Hebrew word for unicorn, implying a unicorn pony Israel. Mazel Tov! “Karkadann” of Karkadannistan is the Persian unicorn. So Persian Aryan Unicorns.
In the South are two nations, Omane and Maretonia (from the show), which have since been renamed to Kurzemenid and Aestlonia respectively. “Kurzeme” is a region in Latvia, and while I can’t find anything on “Aestlon” I recall from my research for the Hellquill area that “Aesti” is the Roman name for modern Eesti/Estonia, suggesting these two nations are Latvia and Estonia parallels. Why they would be located on Zebrica next to Unicorn Persia, rather than next to the Lithuanian themed Longsword.
One race feels conspicuously absent: Changelings. Why are there no Changeling nations on Zebrica? One set of cultures that feels conspicuously absent are Hispanic cultures. I understand that they don’t exist in that part of the world, but then why include Brazilian Macaws?
There are many nations I Raif her couldn’t read the names of or figure out. “Tanaigha” in the south east could be from the Irish word for “thin,” a Changeling nation, from a Zulu phrase meaning “we did it,” a Zebra nation that kicked out Griffin settlers, or a Japanese phrase, a Kirin nation.
\r
Today has been fucking cursed. First the fire alarms go off at 7 in the morning, then the power goes out at 4 in the evening. What the fuck, universe?
>>102086Neat. At least we'll finally have some proper desert locations to fight in now, besides just the Appleloosan region.
>>102086I need this content though. The wait is killing me. I have been following Equestria at war since it only had the one continent. It is super impressive what they have done with it.
>>102087Pets the old pony again.
You should have seen how bizarrely that trial ended
>>102088Pets the Unicorn >>102089The ever absent unicorn is pet. Hopefully I won't disappear after 3 posts this time.
>>102091I guess I will check out a smith to window shop their daggers.
>>102092A pawn shop has a set of daggers on display. They appear purpose made as weapons
>>102093Do they have price tags on them, or would I have to talk to the pony inside?
>>102095I'll keep that in mind and come back with the bat. He might find some more throwing knives too. I continue wandering around a bit, taking note of ponies as I go. Do they look poor, on edge, or perhaps shady, or did I trot into a decent part of town?
>>102097Well... I better get back to the room soon then. But not before I head by a bakery. I think Spark could use something to eat once in a while.
>>102098There are certainly bakeries
I'm being silly, and you can't stop me!
>>102100NO FUN ALLOWED REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE >>102102You better take off that sign there, sir.
Because if not you'll feel the pain >>102100Sir, this is a Zero silliness zone
>>102101You're back!
>>102104Don't make me come down there, mister!
>>102105You're asking a lot of me, here.
>>102105Hi. Had some things to deal with in real life. Probably will be absent for longer periods of time and after about 10 PM ART, I won't be able to play, so weekdays are off or extremely shortened.
Felt very bad when I failed so hard at my uni exams so far, so I have to give more time to it. A lot more >>102109UTC offset is -3
Not sure about your particular time.
>>102110Uh... What time is it now?
>>102112Okay, you are two hours ahead of me then. I can deal with that on weekdays if I start immediately after work
Or during the last, boring hour of work >>102113I see. I'd rather you not risk your real life work just for me, but if you're confident that it'll work and not make a toll on your sanity, sure.
If you want to start now, last post of mine was
>>102000 Just booked airfare and hotels for the final BronyCon>>102000"I wish I had a rifle... I could try"
Note that Iron can toss a rock out of line of sight, but that any kind of precise aiming, or adding any real force to the rock by means of bucking, requires standing in a more vulnerable position, at least when targeting the ponies
>>102115Iron looks at Cauldron, letting go of the rock on his cover.
"We still have the coat piercers
rifles in your saddlebags, unless you have thrown them away somewhere."
Nice. Have fun there. Hopefully it's a good time. So, here's an unrelated question while we wait for something else to happen: what horse/pony-related name would you use to name a class of frigate?
>>102118Damnit, it didn't update properly.Iron nods.
"Now that your weaponis optimal for the job, let us start a small distraction."
He extends his head ever so slowly to show off his big, poofy, wild hair while covering his head, pushing the aimed rock away without any clear target with the maximum strength possible from under cover to try and lure some fire to him while Cauldron prepares her shot.
>>102121Eh...thanks? I was thinking more along the lines of naming the entire class of ship.
>>102123Floater!
A very fast scouting ship but isn't as small as a U-Boat.
>>102119Well, first, look to what you are modelling your Navy on. In World War 2, the Frigates of the Royal Canadian Navy were named after small islands, suburbs, rivers, and lakes. I can't exactly tell what the British Royal Navy used as its naming convention but it appearsa to be pretty much the same as the Canadian, with Frigates given the names of minor locations in England. The U.S. Navy did not have frigates per se, but did have destroyer escorts, which are basically the same thing. Their destroyer escorts tended to be named after minor naval officers, Medal of Honor/Navy Cross winners, and navy personnel killed in action including at the beginning of WW2 (they built ships fast). I personally like the U.S. naming convention the most, so let's go with that.
I would take the name of a navy-associated Medal of Honor recipient from before WW2 and ponify it. Consider Daniel Daly, a man who, in my opinion, is an ideal model of what an American Soldier should be. He served in China in the Boxer rebellion, when a large number of Boxer rebels attacked and nearly overwhelmed his position. He held on with a machine gun and fought off the attacking Boxers, possibly inflicting as many as 200 enemy casualties, an act for which he won the Medal of Honor. Some years later, he was serving on a U.S. mission in Haiti as his unit was trying to cross a river. His unit was attacked, scattered, and its one and only machine gun was lost in the river. He went back on his own, dived into the river, retrieved the machine gun, and I believe fought off a number of rebel soldiers before going back to his platoon, an act for which he earned the Medal of Honor. But it was Daniel Daly's actions in World War 1 that earned him immortally. He is most known for the Battle of Belleau Wood, where his unit was holed up in a trench under heavy enemy machine gun fire, refusing to advance. Then Daly stood up out of his trench, and yelled to his men, "Come on you sons a bitches! You want to live forever?" With Daly leading the charge, the unit went forth, and ultimately captured or destroyed multiple German machine gun positions. Daly insisted that he did not use the term "sons a bitches" but rather "men." The U.S. military considered giving Daly a Medal of Honor for acts of heroism in World War 1, but believed that no man should have three Medals of Honor.
So I would name the ship after Daniel Daly. As a ponified name... probably Daniel Hayleaf? Daniel Daisy? I don't know. There's something about the Daly story, and how naming a ship after it would honor it, strikes me as only really making sense in the American cultural context. If I wanted a more,
British cultural attitude, I would name a ship something like
Hayseeds.
Fun fact, the ship in Starship Troopers is a Transport-Frigate named
Roger Young, after an American WW2 Medal of Honor winner in the Pacific. Starship Troopers also uses a variation of Daly's famous line, "Come on you dumb apes, you want to live forever?"
>>102121Oh come on
>>102122Two shots aim at Iron, both miss.
He can see looking down that the black maned pony in a Panama Hat is aiming a pistol over towards him, while one porter aims a rifle. The other porter is still unarmed, as is the white pony in the Pith helmet.
>>102127+4 from full cover >>102128Iron feels one of the bullets close to his poofy hair.
"Shoot the coat piercerer!"
porter with rifle >>102125Huh. Didn't expect to learn that today. Neat.
[10d20 = 121]>>102131Aww
Pets the edgy pony>>102130The more you know
>>102129With her last few rounds, she complies
>>102132Nice shots all around!
Are you rerolling to confirm the crit?
[1d20 = 15]>>102133Not necessarySeveral shots hit the Porter, and he falls to the ground
The Stallion with the Panama Hat shoots back
[2d6 = 7]>>102134Cauldron is hit, and falls back
>>102132So, you still wanting to write that news article, or have you given up?
>>102136Uh... it may be best to continue, and then if one is written later, it can be presented later
>>102137D'aww, there you go Dark Star. Maybe later we'll find a good mare for him. Shouldn't be too hard, as Equestria should have a favorable male to female ratio
>>102138Alright then, it will be implied he read a newspaper. How long do you think that would have taken him?
[1d20 = 5]>>102134>>102135Aw man. I wanted Cauldron to get off scot-free.Iron, seeing how his partner got wounded by the stallion with the small gun, starts to fume up inside.
"That does it."
He drops all pretense of staying in cover, puts a rock in bucking range aimed at one of the special ponies, turns around and gives it a powerful kick right to that offender with the Panama hat. Yes, power hit +5
>>102143It’s okay Dark Star, there are plenty of mares in the herd
>>102141>>102142Iron misses. Caudron is still shot, and more importantly, seems to have used the last of her ammunition.
After this, Panama hat decides to fall back, and the other two needed no persuasion to follow
>>102144Darn.Cursing under his breath, he looks over Cauldron to ensure her overall wellbeing.
"Are you alright?"
>>102145For a moment, Cauldron looks as if she wants to yell "No I'm not alright!"
Instead, cauldron places a hoof near the area between the two shoulders under her neck
"I've been shot"
>>102146Woah. That sounds quite bad.Iron quickly moves beside her, trying to see the wound for himself.
"Do you have those potions and if so, would they treat you of your piece of metal inside?"
>>102147"I think I have one container and some herbs, but no... The bullet remains until it is removed"
Cauldron looks a little pained, and turns herself over onto her back, with the bullet wound above her chest, but entering down into her barrel.
"I think that was their main attacking force..."
Something moves behind Iron
>>102148Hoping it's Pear.As he was about to try to dislodge the bullet with some stubborness and resilience, the presence puts him on edge. He lightly turns his head to face the newcomer.