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Lady Lanceguard


Frain Breeze

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Name: Lady Lanceguard (or just Lanceguard if you prefer)

Sex: Female

Age: Mare

Species: Unicorn

Coat Color: Light brown

Mane/Tail/Markings Color & Style: Dark brown mane and tail. Both tend to be on the messy side

Eye Color: Blue

Cutie Mark: Two crossed unicorn horns (1 black, 1 white)

Physique: Slightly taller than average, with some extra muscle in her front legs and neck

Origin: Canterlot

Roleplay Type: Mane RP

Occupation: Athlete (jousting)

Motivation: She wants to make jousting the popular event it once was.

Character Summary: Lanceguard has been involved in jousts nearly her whole life, starting with a simple club in her school years, to official tournaments later in life. As of late, however, she has noticed less and less ponies showing up to these events, spectators and competitors alike. Do modern ponies find it too violent? Have they gotten too soft? Whatever the reason, Lady Lanceguard has made it her mission to bring the sport back into the spotlight. She now travels the country, usually still wearing her caparison, in hopes of spurring others into jousting. She will take on any opponent, and will sometimes behave arrogantly if she thinks it will get a potential opponent riled up and ready to challenge her.

In the jousting arena, the goal is to knock down the opponent- If their sides or back touches the ground, they're out. Lanceguard's hind legs aren't quite strong enough to win in a headlong charge, so her usual tactic is to dodge direct hits and instead try to attack from the side. She keeps herself low to the ground, and will often attempt to reach her horn under her opponent and flip them into the air. It is a maneuver that has earned her equal amounts of victories and sore necks. Though Lanceguard is accustomed to winning jousts, she is not a sore loser. She will accept a fair loss and will congratulate the winner on a job well done.

Though Lanceguard is a competitive fighter, she is not without class. She was brought up in Canterlot, after all. She insists on introducing herself with the title "Lady" so as to remind everyone of her upper-class origins. Despite her family's long line of powerful spellcasters, Lanceguard's own magic is rather lacking. Her spells are limited to the usual telekinesis and an occasional armor-repair spell. She figures this is probably for the better, though- Not much to lose if she ends up breaking her horn again. It's happened before.

Back in her school days, Lanceguard made it to the final round of one of her club's tournaments, finding herself against the toughest colt from her class. The joust began, and they hit hard in the initial charge. Lanceguard stumbled back, and barely had time to regain her footing before he charged again. After a few such attacks, Lanceguard was nearing the wall of the arena. She had to go on the offensive. Both contenders charged at full speed, the tips of their horns lodging in each others' helmets. As soon as she felt herself being pushed, Lanceguard jumped backwards, pulling the colt off balance. Lanceguard took a step back, using the colt's own momentum against him as she reared up and threw him over her shoulder with her horn*. She looked over her shoulder at her defeated opponent, and was shocked to see part of her horn broken off and lying on the ground beside him. More shocking, however, were the two new horns she saw- The ones that made up her brand new cutie mark. As soon as she saw that, she stopped worrying about her horn.

Her family was concerned of course, being all adept magic users. However, their studies had also taught them that there's no fighting a pony's special talent. If jousting was her talent, that was that. Lanceguard was still able to use magic after damaging her horn, but she practically never trains her spells anymore. She only really works on her magic when it's all she can do, such as when traveling by train or when recovering from an injury. Lanceguard's family occasionally picks on her for her low magic ability, but it's all in good fun. Her horn still isn't perfect since she got her cutie mark, so she wears a false horn over it to hide the damaged bit. Lanceguard doesn't normally tell other ponies about her false horn, but she isn't defensive about it either. If she has the right audience, she doesn't mind breaking off the fake piece to get a rise out of a tournament crowd, or even for the occasional practical joke. However, she's a lot more careful about it when trying to get more magically-gifted unicorns into the arena, so as not to scare them off.

Reference picture (click to zoom)

ladylanceguard.th.jpg

*horn-flip referenced in her cutie mark story (click to zoom)

lanceguardflip.th.jpg

Edited by Frain Breeze
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I really like just about everything about this character. The first jousting match I saw was at a Renaissance festival this fall and it was bloody amazing; best sport I've ever seen.

One thing I like about this character is she's somewhat got this dichotomy where she's very rough because she is a professional fighter of sorts, but she obviously can be quite refined as well. I think this should make for quite an interesting character.

The only question I have is, How did she get her cutie mark?

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I'm still kinda stumped on the cutie mark story. Is it actually required in the application, or just a suggestion to help fill out the summary portion?

On a side note, what's the general consensus on unicorns breaking horns- Decreased powers or total loss of powers? How long does it take them to grow back, assuming they do?

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Unless you want your cutie mark story to be a compelling secret for a roleplay later on, you should have a cutie mark story (that's my opinion, I don't know if the staff would agree). After all, it's one of the most (if not the most) important moment in the life of a pony, and has big influence on his/her development.

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The only problem we have here is the breaking of horns and how long it takes for them to be restored. Or even if they can be restored. We've seen that teeth can be re-grown via magical herbs, but there's been nothing that suggests horn growth or restoration which makes this kind of tricky. After discussing it with staff:

It is my conclusion at this point that unicorn horn growth should be something that starts from birth and is a constant thing that takes a while to reach full length. Unlike Hair(The fastest), fingernails (Medium) or hooves (Slow), it is a very slow process that takes a very long time. How long, is really hard to say since we do not know how long ponies live in the series. But I would project that as an equivalency, it takes at least until the teens for a unicorn to reach full extension of their horn, say about 18 years of age when they are considered mature. Thus, full regrowth in a year is not possible unless some severe magic (Likely something that Zecora MIGHT be able to do, and that's a very very light might) is involved. Possibly there are unicorn healers that can restore broken horns (And likely, like a missing limb, would have to graft it back on somehow using magic) but this would result in the reduction of a unicorn's power for a while, if not permanently and so should never be taken lightly.

If she's broken her horn once before, I would suggest that it be taken into consideration that she have sought some treatment for her broken horn in the story but that maybe she hides the fact that she has a broken horn under her helmet (or perhaps, wears something that resembles a horn over her broken one while it is mending). Since you've already suggested that she's a low power unicorn to begin with, the reduction in power isn't particularily a problem.

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I am sure there is some level of "broken horn" treatment magic/science in Equestria as such tragedies likely happen on a regular occurrence. So it would not surprise me if their medical science/magic found a way to either grow them back (if they can't naturally), or do it faster than what it would occur naturally. I would see it akin to a sport's injury, depending on the severity (from a small chip to the entire thing removed) it could be from a few weeks to an entire lifetime of disability. In short though I am sure they have methods for horn repair, just my opinion.

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Keep in mind that she didn't break the whole thing off. I was envisioning something more like just the last quarter of it being snapped. But if that's still a bit much, I suppose she could wear a false horn over the damaged bit. I was actually tossing around that idea when I was brainstorming this char.

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