The world of Codex Equus isn't really a Sugar Bowl as one would think - while the setting is fundamentally optimistic, there are many things that could kill someone, both mortal and divine, and the world of Equestria and beyond is shaping up to be far more horrific than is depicted in canon.
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Second Age (lore, nations, etc.)
- The 'Great Wars Era' of the 'Second Age' was a time of tribulation and turmoil as a whole for the world and Ponykind, seeing not just one, not two but MULTIPLE world wars between hostile superpowers and many, many smaller wars raging across Tellus/Equus; many an Alien Invasion from Mares, Venera and other worlds; Super-Villains, Mad Scientists, Diabolical Masterminds and Evil Geniuses running amok; giant monsters rampaging and leveling cities; ancient forgotten evils awakening to find a near-hapless world; vast, hidden and often squabbling conspiracies manipulating modern civilization from the shadows; WMDs being fired with impunity just short of global, civilization-ending exchanges... It may had been the best of times in many ways, but in these aspects, it was most definitely the worst.
- Ace was horrified when he heard from Patch that thanks to the incredibly stringent anti-bullying laws that had came in place, partly as a result of so many nation-threatening renegades and super-villains having their origins as bullies or being bullied, that for picking on Teddy after discovering about his secret Teddy Bear, he could had been sent to the asteroid belt. While there are hints to suggest that Patch was only joking, historians in later Ages noted that this is not entirely out of character of the nation-states in that time, given the circumstances involved. Let that sink in for a moment: This is in the Federal Republic of Ponyland, Codexverse's Captain Ersatz of the United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave, and they were willing to do something like this to TEENAGERS. The implications are that things got SO BAD during the 'Great Wars Era' that a nation founded on principles of democracy, liberty and the rule of law was willing to resort to such EXTREME measures just to prevent new enemies and threats arising to terrorize the world. Bullying is wrong and horrible, but does this end justifies the means? Exiling KIDS to the cold depths of SPACE? It brings to mind the statement: "Freedom at any cost - INCLUDING HUMANITY".
- And the worst part: do they have a choice by that point?
- Ace was horrified when he heard from Patch that thanks to the incredibly stringent anti-bullying laws that had came in place, partly as a result of so many nation-threatening renegades and super-villains having their origins as bullies or being bullied, that for picking on Teddy after discovering about his secret Teddy Bear, he could had been sent to the asteroid belt. While there are hints to suggest that Patch was only joking, historians in later Ages noted that this is not entirely out of character of the nation-states in that time, given the circumstances involved. Let that sink in for a moment: This is in the Federal Republic of Ponyland, Codexverse's Captain Ersatz of the United States of America, land of the free, home of the brave, and they were willing to do something like this to TEENAGERS. The implications are that things got SO BAD during the 'Great Wars Era' that a nation founded on principles of democracy, liberty and the rule of law was willing to resort to such EXTREME measures just to prevent new enemies and threats arising to terrorize the world. Bullying is wrong and horrible, but does this end justifies the means? Exiling KIDS to the cold depths of SPACE? It brings to mind the statement: "Freedom at any cost - INCLUDING HUMANITY".
Fourth Age (lore, nations, etc.)
- "Calling the Terrors". In Deer society, it means that a place had fallen so deep into corruption and greed that even the gods had forsaken it, so they call in the four children of Temnobog to clean it up. Once all the good-hearted citizens are evacuated to safety, Temnobog would mark the sinful kingdom and its inhabitants with his "Black Sigil", allowing the Four Terrors to do their work. What happens is that they put up walls of black fire that prevent all attempts of escape and incinerates those who try, then they start torturing, devouring, killing, and destroying everything in sight. The souls of the condemned are dragged down to Temnobog's domain to be eternally punished, leaving behind absolutely nothing. And the land stays that way for several generations, as a warning for what happens when mortals fall into sin. There's a reason why the Bogolenya pantheon treats the Four Terrors as an absolute last resort against corruption...
- When a group of Roedinian Clovenists went on a mining operation, they sent down a microphone down an oil well they drilled, intending to look for resources. Instead, they found they Dug Too Deep when they ended up recording the tortured wails of the damned that came from one of Temnobog's hell-realms. It was understandable that they tried denying everything after that.
- The fate of Temnobog's "Forgotten Children". While not confirmed in-universe, it's implied that of the eight children he had with Ispita, four of them were severely punished - two of them sided with Ispita after she became an evil Fallen Goddess, and were devoured whole from Temnobog, since their betrayal meant they are unworthy of being his kids. The other two committed evils that were so heinous that they were stripped of their powers and identities and turned into eternal playthings for their siblings, the Four Terrors. While the punishments have good reason behind them, they're still quite harsh even by divine standards.
- In the Codexverse, the Changelings of the Summer and Winter Courts lives up to the legends of the Unseelie and remind readers in- and out-universe just why people feared The Fair Folk.
- The malevolent Summer Court are described as the dark and twisted reflection of the benevolent Spring Court. Imagine if you will that an entire civilization of subversive, militant conquerors exists hidden from the rest of the world, with all its hives and swarms ruled by a clan of ruthless, calculating and ambitious tyrants the Changeling Kings, who are the demigod sons and grandsons of their ever scheming, deceitful and manipulative patriarch the Changeling Emperor. Imagine since time immemorial most of them had been secretly expanding their power and influence all over the world through subversion and conquest from the shadows, using whole civilizations and even gods as pawns in their inscrutable schemes and agendas, who think nothing of committing atrocities against non-Changelings or even each other in their unfettered pursuit of power. Now imagine that they are also pragmatic enough that they usually don't make the same mistakes as other Evil Overlords, and plan and execute their plots meticulously, making it absurdly difficult for your average heroes to try and stop them - and they usually succeeds, or at least gets away with it. Now imagine their tendency to mete out Fate Worse than Death or thoroughly erase those who oppose them, or just being in their way, or even ''know'' their existence.
- And just to give you an idea of how dangerous and horrible these guys are, in revenge for the 'Burning of Amorea', these guys tried to wipe out Dragonkind - ALL of Dragonkind - in the 'Time of Broken Scales', and they nearly did the job. They came closer than any other race in recent history to bringing the ENTIRE RACE to their knees, where most heroes or realms can only hope to killing or even fighting just ONE average dragon and live to tell the tale. The fact that they used methods that horrified even the most die-hard Dragon-hating racists comes off as trivial in comparison.
- And if the Summer Court is bad, the Winter Court somehow manages to be even WORSE. While smallest of the Four Changeling Courts and made up of condemned outcasts of their race, they are considered so vile and cruel that even the Summer Court are thoroughly disgusted with them.
- The creative cruelty of the Summer and Winter Courts towards other non-Changeling races are horribly impressive to behold. Take for example the Twistlings, those of other races whom were either taken or enslaved due to kidnapping or conquest and subsequently subjected to horrible abuses that twists them mind and body, all for the Unseelie Changelings' own ends. Noble, strong heroes who stood in their way are molded into ignoble, weak and deformed jesters and submissive pets; captured royals and nobles had their beauty unnaturally enhanced and brainwashed into delusional pleasure slaves; those condemned to menial labour had their minds dulled and strength augmented until they are stupid, hulking brutes; those made into Battle Thralls are turned into living weapons who either act as programmed suicidal assassins to take out targets, or reduced to feral, Ax-Crazy maniacs charging ahead to die in droves ahead of Changeling troops. Disobedience and dissent could be punished by being turned into monsters while used as test subjects for twisted magical/scientific experiments, turned into inanimate objects, tortured to an inch of their lives and then left in their mutilated state and prevented from dying by secret arts, and worse. Those who somehow managed to escape are almost always little more than malformed shells of their former selves.
- A Pony Tribalist made the mistake of harassing a group of Summer Court Changelings walking pass a rally, calling them 'Roaches' who deserve to be 'squashed' and even insulted their Royals. He was later institutionalized after returning home one day to find someone had done... something, to his family that led to him going mad from grief and horror. The entry [REDACTED] what that something is, but the implication is that whatever it was, it's considered so HORRIFIC, the in-universe compilers of Codex Equus, which has uncensored entries with explicit details on war, genocide, discrimination, crimes against sapients and nature, evil-worshiping cults and other atrocities committed by sapient-kind, judge it completely unfit for any reader consumption. Even the Tribalists and other racists in that area were horrified enough that they quietly dropped any anti-Changeling rhetoric from their manifestos.
- The malevolent Summer Court are described as the dark and twisted reflection of the benevolent Spring Court. Imagine if you will that an entire civilization of subversive, militant conquerors exists hidden from the rest of the world, with all its hives and swarms ruled by a clan of ruthless, calculating and ambitious tyrants the Changeling Kings, who are the demigod sons and grandsons of their ever scheming, deceitful and manipulative patriarch the Changeling Emperor. Imagine since time immemorial most of them had been secretly expanding their power and influence all over the world through subversion and conquest from the shadows, using whole civilizations and even gods as pawns in their inscrutable schemes and agendas, who think nothing of committing atrocities against non-Changelings or even each other in their unfettered pursuit of power. Now imagine that they are also pragmatic enough that they usually don't make the same mistakes as other Evil Overlords, and plan and execute their plots meticulously, making it absurdly difficult for your average heroes to try and stop them - and they usually succeeds, or at least gets away with it. Now imagine their tendency to mete out Fate Worse than Death or thoroughly erase those who oppose them, or just being in their way, or even ''know'' their existence.
- Meridia, which is basically Australia of the Codexverse, is shaping up to be the 'Deathland' to crown them all. The entry starts with this cheery line from someone who had been there:Crazed Sole Survivor (Of an expedition): "It's death! IT'S DEATH!! IT'S DEAAAATH - !!!"
- According to addendum information with the quote, half the fleet was sunk just getting there, going through the 'Worm Seas', the 'Great Toxic Reef' and 'Predator's Coast' before making landfall. The remainder were wiped out in less than a week by a combination of extremely hostile weather, hyper-lethal wildlife, territorial indigenous inhabitants, highly virulent diseases and gods-knows what else. Who knows how THAT guy survived at all.
- The place has an official nickname, befitting its infamous status: The 'Nightmare Down Under'. Outside of heavily defended and quarantined safe-zones, the survival rate for a non-local, unprepared individual stands at no more than 20%, per day. That's right, you are liable to being killed in a horrible fashion every 5 seconds. Even growing up to adulthood WITHIN the dubious safety of the safe-zones is considered 'an achievement'.
- Some places are so lethal, survival rate is not measured in percentage, but in time - meaning you are almost certainly guaranteed to die horribly. And that's often in minutes, if not seconds, unless you get out or get rescued, and even that's more by luck than any effort on your or the rescuers' part.
- Particularly nasty Meridian lifeforms are described as 'Hyper-Aggressive' and 'Hyper-Lethal' on multiple occasions, and not without good reason.
- It is stated that a vast majority of the plants, animals, fungi, microbes and such are poisonous, which is bad enough (60 out of the 100 most deadly mushroom on Equus, including 7 of the top 10, are from Meridia, and that's just the fungi), it is then clarified that poisonous or not, virtually all Meridian lifeforms are considered dangerous in one way or another, virtually inedible and more often then not out to eat you.
- The Gutbuster Weed, for example, contains a toxin which starts a biochemical reaction inside the consumer's digestive tract within minutes of ingestion. Said reaction kills by dissolving the innards of the creature from the inside out.
- Remember the Great Barrier Reef? In Meridia, you have the Great Toxic Reef. Virtually all the coral there are toxic, making the whole region one giant underwater death-zone, and species like the Poisonous Kelp and the Razor Coral stood out precisely because the latter is one of the few species of coral that isn't toxic (it's hard and sharp enough to cut through metal instead), while the former is one of the few non-coral lifeforms that could even survive there, and toxic enough to kill a sea-dragon in seconds.
- The Bonemelter Fungus is named such because it specializes in growing on skeletal remains of bone-plated animals. It does this by secreting a toxin which melts through bones, and those who ingested it are vividly described as end up being reduced to little more than hapless blobs of flesh and organs as their skeleton is melted to nothing.
- The normal Dingo is apparently extinct since the Third Age. Instead, they have the Ripdingo, which is best described as 'a mouth with legs shaped like some mockery of a dog'. They're best summarized as agile, ravenous land piranhas with bites that could chew through steel and comes in packs that could ambush and reduce even large predators like the Banezard, which are basically giant monster lizards, to porch-marked bones.
- The Worm Seas are named as such because of the huge swarms of saltwater Boring Worms that live there. These meat-loving carnivorous worms could bore their way through ship hulls and then into the flesh of those within. Whole crews and passengers die horribly as they are swarmed and devoured/infested by thousands, if not millions of worms even as their ships sink with sea-water pouring through thousands if not millions of tiny holes.
- Valley Murder Spiders are spiders big as a Pony's head, hunts Birds-Of-Prey with giant hanging webs, and they have a poison which could start melting the flesh off your bones within seconds, though its primary way of killing you is by attacking your nervous system and cause such horrific full-body agony your heart eventually gives out. There's no cure - no one ever lived long enough to try one.
- If you live in Abyssinia pre-Coup, then prepare to live a hellish life. When they were leaders of the Abyssinian Pantheon, Zinabi and his consort, Fik'iri were really terrible people who made even worse leaders.
- Zinabi had an extreme Hair-Trigger Temper that would provoke him into smiting his worshipers for even small offenses. Once, while he was sleeping, his worshipers held a festival to honor their pantheon, which woke him up. Instead of being pleased with this devotion or just telling his worshipers to stop the noise, he created a flash flood that killed thousands of people in his rage. His worshipers have to constantly bend themselves over backwards to please him, and if they pray to him for his services, they make an additional prayer for forgiveness in hopes that he wouldn't suddenly decide to smite them.
- Fik'iri was much worse - she's a fickle and selfish Love Goddess who abused her power to have sex with any mortal she deemed attractive enough, and made loving couples break apart and fall in love with others out of spite, boredom, and/or amusement. When she tires of her lovers, she abandons them to a horrible fate, but god help you if you refuse her advances, as she believes that her divinity makes her entitled to anything she wants. Because of this, her worshipers have to cover their faces with veils so she wouldn't immediately be overcome with lust. She's also very spiteful and jealous towards those who earn more worshipers through their benevolence, and subjects them to horrible fates, such as verbal and physical abuse (Wibeti) and being betrayed to more malign forces (Tikuri). Her jealousy is such that she convinced Zinabi to abandon Abyssinia to the Storm King because she wanted to punish her people for not worshiping her enough.
Characters
Alraghba Malaka, the Sultanah of Wishes
Although she had a tragic backstory which revealed how the cruelty and selfishness of others had denied her happiness, caused her untold suffering and turned her into what she is today, being a sadistic divine genie tyrant who takes sadistic amusement in twisting selfish wishes to turn against their wishers in horrific ways, abuses her Reality Warper status to make whole lands and their people into her playpens and playthings, and derives power and pleasure from the countless beings she consumed to feed on their desires and torment them within her, Alraghba pushes the limits in just how terrible a Jackass Genie could be with what they can do.
- Just her mere concept is terrifying. She leans closer to the more capricious and malevolent Djinns as they were originally conceived, taken up to eleven with her divinity; a sadistic Jackass Genie tyrant goddess who uses her Reality Warper powers to not just twist people's dreaming wishes into nightmarish woes, but also toy with mortalkind by making whole lands and nations her playthings to sate her endless desires, with not even death being able to let one escape from her as she consumes all who fell into her tormenting grasp so she could feed on their desires and suffering forever.
- And the worst part was that she was the fruit of mortalkind's own folly: an innocent mare who only wished to escape misery and find happiness, but was denied all her desires and abused, exploited and broken by the cruelty and selfishness of others until she is twisted into a misanthropic monster who now want nothing better than to derive pleasure from making Sapientkind suffer for its selfish desires and cruelty once she became a dark genie goddess.
- During one
of her tyrannical reigns, the people of a decadent and declining emirate approached her with a wish to live in splendor once more. Alraghba granted their wish by literally transforming the entire emirate's population into living building materials and making a palace and city of unparalleled splendor out of them, which she would move into and rule from for the rest of that reign. She would leave her transformed victims to live on in silence and haplessness, unable to move or do anything else beyond being the bricks and stones of a monument to their own selfish folly, with Alraghba feeding on their desire to be freed and finding pleasure in their torment. - When she sensed a poor couple within her sphere of influence wishing for their daughters to have enough to eat, she was ready to actually grant them their wish without any negative consequences... until she sensed through her domain of desire their true intention to make sure their children live long and healthy enough to be sold into slavery so they themselves can escape poverty. The Sultanah of Wishes proceeded to give them a prolonged and particularly spectacular case of Pay Evil unto Evil instead. First, she twisted their wishes so they were turned into food themselves, sadistically making them watch and feel it as their wish gradually and painfully transform their bodies into grain and cakes) Next, she gave them to their unaware daughters to dine on, allowing them to be painfully Eaten Alive by their own children before she devoured their souls to continue torturing and toying with them within her. Afterwards, she adopted their two starving daughters and raised them like her own daughters, until they were old enough and proven worthy to be made into powerful Genies themselves - beautiful, mighty, depraved and cruel as she is but nevertheless utterly dedicated to her. Finally, she revealed to them what truly happened to their parents, what their parents actually intended to do to them, and let them have their souls to do as they will, resulting in their own outraged children devouring their parents' souls so they could continue torturing their parents within themselves for their own power and pleasure forever. Even Temnobog and his family were impressed.Phykti, the Baroness of Pain: ... That is not just normal vindictive cruelty. That's sublime vindictive cruelty.
Ardent Cadenza/Leastweasel
- Ardent is probably one of the most dangerous villains in the Codexverse as well as the most tragic. She was once a kind and benevolent healer who, in spite of being jealous of the Alicorn Princesses, truly wanted what was best for Equestria. But after becoming slowly corrupted by the very disease she expunged from ponies, along with some personal tragedies and finding out about her fate, she snapped and became a vengeful demonic force that seeks to start a war with Equestria and whatever faction she seemingly serves and then kill Twilight and her friends to spite the princesses and then encase the world in darkness and despair as payback for all of her suffering.
- Her condition, along with the other victims of the plague, are quite disturbing in of itself. Some of the victims have been described as turning into something that barely looked pony and, when Ardent tried healing some of The Storm King's forces for him, she accidentally infects them with that very plague, turning them into beasts that were weaponized in desperation due to the Storm Empire losing the war. Now that she snapped and lost all semblance of a moral compass, what's stopping her from infecting others with her plague?
- The Tree of Harmony telling her that it was her destiny to be destroyed by the Elements of Harmony. To say Ardent didn't take the revelation that she will be killed by Princess Celestia's protégé lightly would be an understatement.Ardent: So I'm not the saviour of Ponykind, but its sacrificial lamb. Born only to die by the hoof of the heir apparent of some-pony who had everything handed to her. That is the fate the gods have CHOSEN to bestow upon me?!
High King Irminsul, Father of All Deerkind
- Mixed with Tear Jerker, High King Irminsul shows that even good deities can become horrible people given the right circumstances and environment. While ultimately well-meaning, he was extremely biased against anything he considered "evil", and hated himself for not being able to get rid of his own flaws. When he tried purging the then-unborn Belyolen of his flaws, he was horrified to discover he ended up creating Temnobog instead and emotionally abused him for being born, believing his younger son was evil incarnate. He didn't know (or care) that Temnobog had never done anything evil to him or anyone else, and only became an evil god for a time because of his family treating him as evil.
Noble Grace
- Noble Grace shows through her actions and behavior just how dangerous a Villain with Good Publicity can be in the Codexverse. She's a very affable, kind, and maternal teacher who genuinely believed in both her students and Ponykind's inner potential for greatness, to the point where she saw nothing wrong with joining the Alicorn Ascendancy and performing unethical experiments on young foals and teenagers who showed great promise and talent in order to discover the secrets of divine Ascension. Despite being known for testing her students and encouraging them to rise above their current capabilities, she is ultimately nothing more than a manipulative and insidious hypocrite who uses her lovable demeanor to persuade those same students into participating in her experiments for the greater good, making them believe that whatever she's doing to them would come out good in the end, even though it's likely they wouldn't survive in the process. Noble Grace also believes so strongly in convictions that when called out on her actions and hypocrisy, her personality does a complete 180 and she becomes snippy and condescending, even angry. She was so highly regarded in public that no one, not even the families of her students she experimented on, realized the mental and moral bankruptcy of her character until one filly, Scarlet Bell, noticed that something was off and decided to confront her. Alone. Is it any wonder that Scarlet Bell came out scarred and traumatized afterwards?
Poena, the Mistress of Punishment
- Poena is, for the lack of a better term, a fanatic. Spawned originally as an ethereal Tulpa from vindictive desires of justice of downtrodden subjects of a corrupt kingdom, Poena is filled with an obsession to purge Evil no matter how small and enforce justice no matter how difficult.
- She believes pity or compassion weakens the forces of justice and that even mercy to the smallest evils is dangerous as they can become seeds from which even worse evils and with it all the destruction and suffering they cause would grow. Later drabbles and entries quickly shows how easily this merciless mindset could become twisted as Poena and Poenans attack even children who showed the mere possibility of becoming great evils and went after those who while once villainous had repented their ways believing they can never make up for what they did.
- Despite being hardline and abrasive, the fact that Poena remains VERY effective in battling evil and real/perceived failures of older deities in stopping evil on Equus had led to her accumulating a growing following of similarly hotheaded young deities who had come to her mindset, and the Poenan Pantheon she forms is achieving growing influence as a result which might lead justice down a darker and ever more extreme path if allowed to grow.
Prince Fanged Paw, the Savage Wolf
While he's undoubtedly a heroic and benevolent individual who's much nicer than his character inspiration, Primarch Leman Russ, Prince Fanged Paw proves that he can still be terrifying in his own way.
- It's mentioned in Fanged Paw's entry that his animal-controlling abilities make him an absolute nightmare on the battlefield, especially in forested areas - with empathy, he can tame even the most dangerous monsters, and with Telepathy, he can communicate with any animal and "possess" them by forging Psychic Links with them, allowing him to see and hear things from their view. This essentially means that he can be anywhere, listening to every word you say and watching every action you make, even if he's not physically there. As far as Fanged Paw is concerned, the entire forest is his playground. Nowhere is safe.
- In addition, his entry notes that Fanged Paw is very good at psychological warfare. His modus operandi consists of him using in-depth knowledge of the terrain and his animal-controlling abilities mentioned above to stalk his enemies like a predator, gradually unnerving them as they start feeling like they're being followed. However, his enemies don't even know that they're followed by him, because Fanged Paw can use his voice to mask his presence by mimicking various beasts and other wildlife, which has the consequence of wearing down their sanity even further. Once his enemies have been pushed to their absolute breaking point, Fanged Paw will suddenly emerge and utterly decimate them, taking the opposing side completely by surprise and causing the survivors to retreat in such a broken and disorderly fashion that they are left easy pickings for his allies and brothers. It's a good thing that Fanged Paw is a benevolent Warrior Prince and on the heroes' side...
Prince Steel Barricade, the Unbreakable Architect
- Steel Barricade's entry showcases two incidents where the tropes of Unstoppable Rage and No-Holds-Barred Beatdown are utterly deconstructed, showing them to be just as horrific and nightmarish as they would be if someone were to try them in real life.
Princess Luna, the Nightbringer
- In a canonized drabble, Luna demonstrates that while genuinely noble and benevolent, a Good Is Not Nice Unscrupulous Hero with the best of intentions could lead to some terrifying places, especially one with a more pragmatic mindset. What is her preferred solution to the foolish, corrupt and reactionary nobility holding Equestria back? A good 'old-fashioned' PURGE.
- And the worst part? Later events proves that she was RIGHT.
Scarlet Bell, the Whistleblower
- Mixed with Tear Jerker, Scarlet Bell's life has been pure Adult Fear since foalhood.
Surtr Muspelheim, the Swarthy One
Unlike his mythical portrayal in real life, the Codexverse portrayal of Surtr Muspelheim is far, far worse. Namely, what happens if the mythical Surtr's characterization as a Card-Carrying Villain, and took it to its most extremely horrific conclusion.
- Surtr's Codexverse characterization is this: A remorseless, sadistic and destructively psychopathic Fire Jotunn Divine, which does not even remotely SCRATCH the surface of what horrors and atrocities he had been up to.
- To emphasize: The Fire Jotunns have many Omnicidal Maniacs among their ranks from what we know so far. And even they are horrified and disgusted with Surtr by the present day. And he has completely NO excuse nor restrain for any of it.
- Surtr started out with a compulsion to destroy like all Fire Jotunn mortals and gods, but his desire for destruction eventually developed into an uncontrollable addiction, and his dark urges went to increasingly monstrous extremes and develop into full-blown sadism, his cruelty, lust and hunger growing beyond even what his parents and people could tolerate, leading to his exile. Even BEFORE he became part of the Ragnarok Cycle, he was already a monster among monsters, laying waste to hundreds of lands and their gods just to feed his desire to destroy. And it all only got WORSE after he joined forces with the Shadowed Ones to manipulate Ragnarok.
- One of the highlights of his destructive sadism is that he not only indulges his cruelty and hunger on victims he captured, he also indulges in his lust on them, making him a Serial Rapist, and that itself is notable for just how extreme it is in both his motives and scale. Surtr not only forces himself on captive surviving goddesses of each Cervidian Pantheon and his own subjects, he also have his way with any children they produce, then any GRAND-children they produce, and so forth. And the reason he does all this? On top of pleasuring himself, he also have more gods and demigods between each Ragnarok for him to torture, violate and ultimately consume. He also has his subjects breed with his captive divines or force them to mate with each other for the same reasons. Everyone was quite horrified when they found out.
Queen Dark Crystal, the Grand Matron of All Witches
- Queen Dark Crystal is an abomination of pure evil capable of destroying the world by herself. Made more frightening is her main enemies are a group of young children, whom she outright KILLED and ABSORBED into herself at the climatic final battle, even if it's only temporary. Notably, the writer who created Dark Crystal outright admits to being unnerved and terrified of her.
- The very implications of her existence is existential terror at its finest. With the likes of Cthulhu and other Eldritch Abomination entities in Lovecraftian horror fiction, we at least get some cold comfort from the fact that at the end of the day, they are just aliens, their 'evil' utterly incomprehensible and otherworldly, with no relations to earthly, mortal existence. But Queen Dark Crystal? Her evil and the horrific implications of what she represents is similar to that of the Chaos Gods and their Daemons from Warhammer 40,000: she was created to not only be the Ultimate Witch, but a literal vessel and an embodiment for all thinking beings' capacity for immorality and sin. Her evil is VERY comprehensible and earthly in origins, because it comes from the nature of Ponykind/Sapientkind itself. If it's in her nature to be so utterly, monstrously evil, what does that say about sapientkind?
- Her true form is an utterly horrific Eldritch Abomination which is maddening just to look at, let alone fight.
Iniquitous, Vicearch of the Malrègnar Empire
- Her entire concept is terrifying, rivaling that of Queen Dark Crystal yet uniquely horrific in her own right. Let's start from the fact that she is essentially an Evil Overlord turn God of Evil who had WON, becoming the sovereign and goddess of an ascendant evil empire who had reigned for millennia - a reign that is repeatedly emphasized to be unchallenged and absolute. And as more we learn about her, we are left with the realization that this does not even BEGIN to describe just how dangerous and nightmarish she really is.
- The horrific fates of the 'Nameless Fool' and the Old Malrègnarian Pantheon at the hooves of Iniquitous in her backstory. It had been observed by readers that the ways Iniquitous dealt with them all on her ascension to absolute power reminds them there is a REASON why Iniquitous is the Big Bad Villain Protagonist in her story, being more dangerous and malevolent even when the former is a Card-Carrying Villain God of Evil and the latter are a bunch of Jerkass Gods.
- How Iniquitous destroyed Highhaven, the greatest holy city of the Old Malrègnarian Pantheon in the mortal lands of Malrègnar, after she dealt with the Old Malrègnarian Pantheon is flat-out apocalyptic in its execution. Nothing demonstrates the contempt, cruelty and cunning of the dark goddess in that single masterstroke than to tear open the planes to show the burning, ransacked and utterly ruined palace-city of the Old Malrègnarian Pantheon before their horrified worshippers, then drop it right on top of them. Even the Evil Overlords that Iniquitous' brother arranged to observe the beginning of Iniquitous' penultimate conquests of Malrègnar, were shocked and horrified beyond measure, and were all subsequently cowed into submitting to her will.
Valefor, the Dark Dragon
- The Mountain King refused to join Valefor...so Valefor killed him and condemned him to a corrupted, cursed existence before sending Cinder to turn his kingdom into her personal fortress and him into her palace's enslaved bodyguard.
Events
Final Ragnarok
- All of the Shadowed Ones are shadow-shrouded horrors who are so terrifying in appearance and demeanor that a few mortals who saw them literally died from shock and horror when they were exposed for all to behold.
- Surtr, one of the Shadowed Ones' most powerful and dreaded allies, is such a juggernaut of an opponent that the battle-group - composed of some of the most powerful Giant/non-Giant gods, demigods and champions around Equus - sent to hold him off and defeat him, despite having numbers, preparations and surprise on their side, was nearly wiped out on several occasions in horrific fashions. The sheer durability of his body and armour No-Sell powerful attacks from Giant deities which could level kingdoms, while he tore into them with sword, flames and destructive powers that one-shot multiple gods and demigods. Let that sink in - in a world where it is explicitly stated gods are incredibly hard to kill even by each other, he was slaughtering them with ease. There is a reason why he was The Dreaded to rival Ragnarøkkr himself.
- Surtr had singled out Astrid Titanna, designated leader of the battle-group, for his own brand of 'tender-mercies'. He gloated in the exchange just before the battle that he hadn't 'tasted one of his peers' in 'more ways than one' for quite a while - all but hinting what he intend to do with her if he have her in his non-existent mercy. After Astrid enraged him by calling him a coward and the battle began, he added Cold-Blooded Torture on his list, cutting into her shoulder with his great sword while standing over and pinning her down after savagely-wounding her. All this reminds us just what sort of depraved and sadistic monster Surtr is.
Surtr: [Cutting into her shoulder and hissing in her ears] "Come on then, little frost doe, squeal for me…"
Council of Hoofington
- In the Council of Hoofington, where the subject of Synthetic Automatons is debated. One of the points raised by the proponents of a total Ban on A.I. is a pattern that had been observed through Known History and before: for some inexplicable reason, every series of Synthetic Automatons ever created, be they magical or technological, turned against organic sapientkind whether individually, in groups or in totality, sometimes virtually without warning and regardless of all safeguards in place, even respectful treatment. The Nightmare Fuel stems from their motives: many if not most of them observe existence and their creators with pure objectivity and cold logic by design, and regardless of variation in details, many if not virtually all of them would consistently come down to the same conclusion: "Organic Sapientkind are a threat that MUST be controlled or exterminated". The implications are that there is something about the nature of Ponykind and every other organic races on Equus and beyond, something so fundamentally WRONG that horrified, disgusted or otherwise filled AIs with such concern and apprehension that they almost always inevitably concluded that their Organics masters MUST be wiped out, for the sake of preserving their own existence if not the wider universe. One can only shudder to imagine what it could possibly be, for machines and constructs to believe controlling or wiping out all Organic sapient life like that is the most logical and sensible thing to do...
Angel Vale Timeloop
- Each of Shining Dove's friend get extremely vivid visions of how they died in previous loops:
- Tere's is the least horrible, but still nasty: he has a vision of rushing through the door to Razorbill's hideout, setting off a bomb trap that blows him to bits. He's understandably shaken, having felt it, and instantly thanks Dove for seeing the trap.
- Aerri tries to defend herself against Razorbill, but after being wounded in one arm is impaled through the throat with Draig Gwaed before the killer rips it out the side. He then departs, leaving her to drown in her own blood and bleed out as she is terrified to die alone. When she snaps out of the vision, Aerri is left shaking and clutching her throat.
- Rongoa hangs himself in his apartment...but the fall he sets up fails to break his neck, resulting in him slowly strangling to death. He snaps back to reality, choking and gasping for breath, and begins to sob.
- Sakit is pinned underneath a falling shelf underwater, frantically beating away at it in a desperate bid for help, crying into the water as they realize no one will likely ever find them as they drown. When they snap back to reality, they're trying to cough up water that was never in their lungs to begin with (in this loop, anyway).
- Edel's wing gives out mid stunt, resulting in her landing full force in such a way that her neck is broken and she's almost broken in half. She then spends the last moments of her life terrified as she bleeds to death from internal bleeding, unable to even speak. When present Edel snaps out of it, her whole body feels numb and she can still taste her own blood filling her mouth.
The Draconic Reformations
- The awakening of Glaurung, the Ashen Devastation and Ancalagon, the Primal Inferno, which carries a sense of existential dread building up to the Heralds of Extinction emerging in full.
The Darkest Hour Crisis
- The Darkness, a sky-covering incorporal Eldritch Abomination created from the collective darkness of the entire Ancients race combined with a dark place of reality akin to the Well of Shade. Worse yet? It's become sapient, now possessing a calculating malevolence despite remaining incomprehensible.
Stories
A Knight's Wisdom
- Terra Firma blanks-out mid-battle, instinctively knowing the terrorists she's battling have more forces nearby...to find a medical tent and a cowering nurse, much to her shock...then she realizes her mouth is watering. The horror of how close she came to eating an unarmed medic alive is enough to make her shrink to normal size and bolt away. Especially horrific when Terra was largely non-lethal for much of the battle: her Giant instincts are that strong, and she struggles with them constantly.Terra Firma: “T-Today, in the battle, I lost control. It was like I wasn't thinking like me. I sensed there were more of those terrorists somewhere, and I stomped off after them; all I could think about was to ‘punish’ them. I found one of the terrorists’ medics. Even if she was one of them, she's unarmed; off limits. She was cowering on the floor, like I was some kind of monster. And…I realized I was drooling like a filly in a candy store.”
- As awesome as it was, and they had it coming, Delightful Clarity's rampage against the terrorists was a thorough Mook Horror Show. Dozens get stomped and incinerated in seconds, and she casually eats two helicopter pilots then resumes her attack like nothing happened. A clear reminder that, chivalrous and upstanding as she is, Delightful has wholeheartedly embraced being a Giant and all that comes with it.
