History Main / Unicorn

** Lackey co-wrote ''Literature/TheObsidianTrilogy'' with James Mallory, in which unicorns are pony-sized, cloven-hooved, silky-furred, not quite like any other animal, and almost every one of them is a DeadpanSnarker. They have to adjust themselves to be in the vicinity of nonvirgins, and [[OurDemonsAreDifferent demons]] can't abide their touch. The protagonist summons one to carry him to safety, and they're bound together for a year and a day. The unicorn will castrate him if he breaks his vow of chastity within that time, and the conditions are somewhat more stringent than merely being celibate.

* ''Literature/TortallUniverse'': They never have a major appearance, but there are both regular and "killer" unicorns, the latter of which have claws and fangs and are sometimes a threat to people. ''Literature/TortallASpysGuide'' goes into a bit more detail, mentioning that they shed outer casings of their horns, as cats shed fragments of claws, which have special properties, and that they love and protect [[FriendToAllChildren children]], who are sometimes used as virgins are in some media as bait to hunt them. Even killer unicorns, while they don't protect children, won't harm them and prefer to leave the area.
** The most skilled of the Shang warriors take the names of magical creatures; there's a short story in ''Literature/TortallAndOtherLands'' about the girl who eventually becomes the Shang Unicorn.

* ''Literature/{{Impossible Creatures|2023}}'': Unicorns in the Archipelago can live for over 300 years and have all sorts of healing powers. However, they have an aggressive streak, since they'll trample most people who try to ride them. Their horns can ward off karkadans, which are viscous, carnivorous, unicorn-like creatures who kill for sport and have toxins dripping from their horns.

* ''Literature/{{Impossible Creatures|2023}}'': Unicorns in the Archipelago can live for over 300 years and have all sorts of healing powers. However, the have an aggressive streak, since they'll trample most people who try to ride them. Their horns can ward off karkadans, which are viscous, carnivorous, unicorn-like creatures who kill for sport and have toxins dripping from their horns.

** ''VideoGame/TheSims3'': In the Pet expansion, they added rare unicorns that you can catch by either being super nice to animals and having one come visit you, or by going to a sparkly rainbow that appears on the overmap and luring one. Virginity not required in either case.

The switch is linked to one of the most common paired motifs -- the virgin and the unicorn. [[UnicornsPreferVirgins Only a virgin maiden would be able to attract the Unicorn to her]]. Broadly, the story always goes on the lines of the maiden attracting and soothing the unicorn until the hunters who convinced her to do so can attack and kill the unicorn for its horn. Sometimes the maiden is just followed, [[VirginityMakesYouStupid sometimes knowingly involved and tricked.]] The implication is that the unicorn was so fierce and wild [[GoodHurtsEvil only an innocent girl's purity could conquer it]]. [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath What happens if she's not a virgin]] is not popular nowadays; nor is the other medieval way of catching it: tricking it into charging you when you stand in front of a tree and dodging, and it will be unable to pull itself free.

* ''Literature/TheChroniclesOfNarnia'': Peter is shown riding a unicorn into battle, a detail that did not occur in the book. (Unicorn-riding does happen, bu later.)

* ''WesternAnimation/ElArca'': A unicorn shows up too late to board Noah's Ark, and consequently drowns in the global flood.

* In the upcoming ''Manga/UnicoAwakening'' manga series, a [[ContinuityReboot reboot]] of Creator/OsamuTezuka's ''Unico''. Unico's mother is the very first unicorn that came into existence. The prologue explains that unicorns were created from life's secret undercurrent during the dawn of time when humans were younger. Similar to the original manga, Unico's family live at an unknown location close to Mount Olympus and the mortal realm.

* "VideoGame/{{PitPeople}}" has a rather derpy take on the concept with "[[Smeerping Rainbow Horses]]" that attack by shooting their horns.

* ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'': In ''Through the Looking Glass'', Alice meets the Lion and the Unicorn -- [[MotherGoose fighting for the crown]] -- and the unicorn is revealed not to have believed that such things as humans existed, regarding children as fabulous beasts much like we regard unicorns. He and Alice agree to believe in one another's existence.

* ''Literature/JoeLedger'': In ''Literature/TheDragonFactory'', the second novel, the discovery of a video of an apparently real unicorn being hunted for sport is the first indication that someone has invented a potentially dangerous form of genetic engineering.
* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'' Unicorns are revered by medical mages like Nolien because they are natural healers. Their horns, for instance, could purify tainted water. In ''Mana Mutation Menace'', he mutates into a brand new breed of unicorn that has bird-like talons in addition to hooves, a single useless wing, and patches of scales. Given that he becomes a ''monster'' unicorn, he is not gentle, unless he is around his LoveInterest, Tiza.

* ''Literature/TheLaundryFiles'': Charlie Stross has an EldritchAbomination interpretation of unicorns in ''Equoid''. The title refers to how they resemble equine horses but ''aren't'', the same way "humanoid" compares to "human". The spiral horn and the vicious carnivorous horse-thing are separate organisms, but males and females of the same species, and when they mate and merge into a horned horse-thing (the way male anglerfish fuse themselves to females). The result is something far worse than either, and far more intelligent. A young girl is mind-controlled and used as a lure by the creature, rather than being used to lure the unicorn (virginity is apparently not a requirement).

* ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'': Unicorns are among the monsters endemic to the Island, but the Thorden party instead encounters an EvilCounterpart called the bicorn: black horses with two goat-like horns. While unicorns are drawn to virtue and can be tamed by innocent virgin maidens, bicorns love immorality and are known to eat virtuous husbands. Laios reasons that it can be tamed by an corrupt adult male, and the party tries to catch it by behaving [[SevenDeadlySins sinfully]] so they can get close, but they fail to take it alive when it senses Chilchack (who the party assumed was the necessary corrupt adult) and tries to eat him. Turns out the state of his marriage is both less and more complicated than he pretends.

*** The show also has drastically rarer {{Winged Unicorn}}s who tend to be royalty and near-[[PhysicalGod godlike]] in their power. The ones known so far are Princess Celestia (whose power is to control the sun), Princess Luna (who controls the moon and [[DreamWalker dreams]]), Princess [[MeaningfulName Mi Amore]] Cadenza, a.k.a. Cadance/[[SpellMyNameWithAnS Cadence]] (who has power over love), Flurry Heart (it's not yet known what she can do), and Twilight Sparkle herself, who was transformed into an alicorn and crowned a princess at the close of the third season, and was declared Princess of [[ThePowerOfFriendship Friendship]] at the end of the fourth season.

[[quoteright:314: WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/m_6.png]]
[[caption-width-right:314:[[TemptingFate Looks cute, right?]] Well we wouldn't advise you to watch "Lesson Zero", for Celestia's sake.]]

[[caption-width-right:314:[[TemptingFate Looks cute, right?]] Well we wouldn't advise you to watch Lesson Zero, for Celestia's sake.]]

[[caption-width-right:314:[[TemptingFate Looks cute, right?]] Well we wouldn't advise you to watch [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E3LessonZero Lesson Zero]], for Celestia's sake.]]

[[quoteright:314: WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/m_6.png]] [[caption-width-right:314:[[TemptingFateLooks cute, right?]] Well we wouldn't advise you to watch [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS2E3LessonZeroLesson Zero]], for Celestia's sake.]]

[[quoteright:300:[[WesternAnimation/TheLastUnicorn https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_last_unicorn.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:300:Sure, your daughter wants one now... but for all you know, it could make a Kebab from her guts with its head.]]

* Last but not least, the unicorn in the sky: the constellation of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoceros Monoceros]]. Like its mythical counterpart it's very elusive being composed of faint stars and eclipsed by its far more conspicuous neighbour Orion.

* ''Anime/VoltesV'': According to Creator/TadaoNagahama, [[Characters/VoltesVPrinceHeinel Prince Heinel]]'s motif is a unicorn, as they are beasts associated with nobility and he is a person who has the pride of nobility in accordance with the Boazan formality. He was also designed with unicorn horns in [[https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Prince_Heinel?file=Prince_Heinel_Concept.png#Development concept art]].

* ''Anime/VoltesV'': According to Creator/TadaoNagahama, [[Anime/VoltesVCharactersPrinceHeinel Prince Heinel]]'s motif is a unicorn, as they are beasts associated with nobility and he is a person who has the pride of nobility in accordance with the Boazan formality. He was also designed with unicorn horns in [[https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Prince_Heinel?file=Prince_Heinel_Concept.png#Development concept art]].

* ''Webcomic/{{Exiern}}'': [[http://www.exiern.com/?p=9 Don't summon one]] by accident if you are an evil sorcerer. The unicorn's purity is able to defeat evil magic, and a tiara made of it's hair will thwart any attempts at mind control. It also only allows protagonist, Tiffany, ride it and gets quite angry when [[ReallyGetsAround Peonie]] tries. No one appears to have explained why this is to Tiffany, given her temper it is probably for the best.

* ''Fanfic/ThePalaververse'': ''Wedding March'': In a version of the game ''TabletopGame/{{Clue}}'', GreviousHarmWithABody could be committed by the use of "a very small and exceptionally pointy unicorn".