Batponies, anyone?

[TyrannisUmbra]

I'm very curious if anypony is interested in some rules for batponies as a playable race. I can't get enough of the adorable little things, so I've cobbled together something pretty basic myself, if anypony's interested. I'd love to hear any ideas others have too. All I know is I want myself a batpony, and I couldn't find anything regarding any rule adaptations, so I made some myself!

I tried to think of how to keep it balanced, so I mostly kept it in line with Griffons, and threw in a trait (and gave it to batponies for free) to make it so that batponies didn't just get too many bonuses without some kind of negative.

Have a googledoc!

Batpony:
[Game Mechanics]: Batponies have wings and can fly. They begin play with the perk Flight (Rank 1), and may gain up to Flight (Rank 3) through the use of perks. Batponies have Trick Points and can perform basic-level Pegasus Tricks. Batponies start with the Photosensitive trait for free, and additionally have an effective +1 Perception for the purposes of hearing. Batponies have a special talent.
[Background/Roleplay]: Batponies are semi-carnivorous, eating meat as a small portion of their overall diet. As such, meat will not cause the same problems for batponies as it will for other species of ponies (Unless consumed in very large quantities). [Also for those of you who like the idea of some vampirism in your batponies, being semi-carnivorous means that blood is totally acceptable as a part of your diet. In small quantities.] Batponies are also generally nocturnal, though some are known to make the effort to live the diurnal life with their fellow pony species.

Photosensitive: Allows you do see in the dark as if it were day (no darkness penalties), but in brightly lit areas, you lose 1 Perception. Additionally, any penalties caused by bright lights or flashes is doubled.

One of the biggest thing that would be missing, of course, is batpony-specific racial perks. I haven't gone into that much detail, but I am super psyched about this idea, so I might just start brainstorming some out when I get the chance.

[Shady_steps]

i might go over them at some point but unlike my changeling race i cant see Batponies being a completely different playstyle from pegasi, from that standpoint it will be a mostly RP difference (the best kind, people who look for mechanical difference to play a race are odd to me, pick a race because you want to RP it silly!) but i think you do a fine job with bat ponies, i like to use the name Thestral as my sister once said they remind her of them and she likes harry potter, i like to think they have there own name besides "hi, I am a batpony "

[icekatze]

hi hi

I am quite excited to learn more about them, cause they are super cute and adorable.

I'm not sure about the meat eating part, I mean ponies can eat meat too. Also, if you are looking at the morphology of diets based on wings there are about 1,232 species of known bats, only 3 (.002%) of which are blood drinkers, about 862 (~70%) of which are insect eaters, while the other 367 (~30%) or so species are herbivores. Birds are not much different when it comes to eating insects, out of roughly 9,800 species of known birds, ~7,400 of them eat insects (~76%) with 5700 of those making insects their primary diet. ~4,100 species eat fruit and/or nectar (~41%) but only ~1,950 make those their primary diet. Some ~450 species are birds of prey which eat flesh, (~.05%) which is still not much, but a lot higher than bats for blood drinking.

Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is that I personally think they're ponies. Although, who knows what the radiation and taint of the wasteland could do to them...

[TyrannisUmbra]

The bit about being carnivorous is because pretty much all of the popular art/description I've seen of them include fangs, as well as the comment made by MA Larson on his twitter at some point that the original design was based off of Thestrals (which are carnivorous). (Insectivores are still carnivores which eat insects, and it's only natural to assume that a larger species of bat would eat larger creatures, such as your average rodent.) And yes, ponies /can/ eat meat, but FoE canon states that it's not actually healthy for them to have a primarily meat-based diet, and may even cause them to get sick in the long run.

The comment about vampirism is mostly to appease people who like the idea of vampiristic batponies. I don't want to say either 'yay' or 'nay' to that one myself, rather, I provide a logical reason for those who want to be able to have their vampiristic batponies.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Canonically from Luna Eclipsed, they don't have fangs, so thats what I've been going on. (Although fruit bats do have canines, and Thestrals are also skeletal, with reptilian features.)

There is a legitimate distinction between carnivore and insectivore when you look into the scientific literature on the subject. (notable in-context because a lot of insects don't have blood.) But the bigger point was that birds actually have a larger percentage of species that are carnivorous.

Anyway, thats all probably besides the point. Rule of cool, I guess. I admit, I am a big fan of bats myself, and I occasionally get frustrated by people fixating on vampire bats. (Though usually in the negative.)

Personally, I might play up their nocturnal nature, while making the blood drinking aspect of their characterization something that happened since the war. (As a logical reason) And while I know it was used partially in the Arbu arc, there could be other tie-ins with FO3's "Blood Ties," quest. You could also tie it in with how Ian West acted and the culture bound phenomenon of "Wendigo Psychosis," especially since Windigos exist in FiM lore.

But thats just me... you don't have to change anything on my account. I'm sure that given the popularity of vampire bat ponies, this will make the most people happy.

[TyrannisUmbra]

Mhmm, I was planning on going into some kind of racial perks to play up some of those aspects. There's only so much you can do with the basic race outline, after all. Tying in the vampirism to wasteland adaptation is actually a really good idea. I'll have to think that one over, but I kinda like it. It would still mostly only be explored in perks, or maybe a batpony-specific trait, though, since I'd want to leave that up to more personal preference than something obligatory.

I was definitely a little iffy about actually saying they were carnivorous, but the more I thought it out the more I thought about how much it made sense. Still though, I did leave it at "semi-carnivorous", and implied that the majority of their diet was not meat. Like you say, I don't think batponies are entirely different from other species, but I do think it's possible that they did deviate in that way (I am for the idea of pegasi eating fish after all).

If you have some other suggestions, don't hesitate to put them out there. At this point I'm looking for all the inspiration I can get to flesh them out more. I'm hoping to get it serviceable enough to put to use in a few days so it can be put to use.

[Aqu]

A few quick ideas that haven't been balanced in any way, shape, or form, but could be used for the final product with a little more polishing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q25 ... uQL7Y/edit

[TyrannisUmbra]

Update: Added a bunch more perks (including some adapted from existing shared perks from Griffons and Pegasi), and incorporated some ideas from this thread.

[Mister_Clacky]

Great to have rocked some of these out. We'll be having a playtest character in the Platypus game.

[icekatze]

hi hi

In the event that anyone is interested in a Post-war explanation for blood drinking, I offer this slice of background as a semi-plausible explanation based on the phenomenon of Wendigo Psychosis.

In real life, there are several cultures that have a historic mythology surrounding wendigos. In each of these cultures, cannibalism is a serious taboo, even in the face of starvation. (Much like how eating meat could be considered taboo for pony cultures.) In those real life cultures, death from starvation was a legitimate concern that people might face, and the socially correct response was to resign yourself to accept your fate. If you did resort to cannibalism, you would turn into a Wendigo, and be cursed to hunger for human flesh forever.

As far as I can tell, there is a psychosomatic component to Wendigo Psychosis, where someone who has that taboo and mythology ingrained in their upbringing could compulsively believe that they are afflicted. (It doesn't happen so much anymore, as the culture and mythology is shifting, and people are more food secure.)

In Equestria though, it is conceivable that after the war, there was a group of ponies somewhere, many of whom may have had bat-like wings. Even though they lived out of the way and weren't directly targeted by megaspells that ruined the soil, hatred brought the Windigos down on them and they were starving. What followed was an unspeakably terrible time as some of the ponies preyed on others.

Eventually they migrated to places where it was possible to find food - like Equestria proper, with its vast storehouses of canned food - but the ingrained belief that they were irredeemably cursed by the "Windigo Madness," perpetuated itself through the self-hatred of some, and the horror of others who discovered their actions. (Much like how in the Hearth's Warming Carol, the ponies arrived in paradise, but brought their old hatreds with them.)

This might eventually lead to a number of philosophical splits among bat ponies in general, between those who feel resigned to their dark fate, those who believe there is a way to free themselves from their curse, and those (like Vance from FO3) who propose that their eating habits should be embraced.