Webcomic / d20 Pony

d20 Pony is an Interactive Comic created by Rangelost, based on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

As the reader/player, you take the role of Trailblazer, a young earth pony with an adventurous spirit, who has just moved to her new home of Hoofington.

The comic is presented in the form of a Role-Playing Game using the d20 roleplay system. Each page of the comic represents a turn of the game; readers can collectively control Trailblazer's actions by submitting them as comments, and a die roll selects which action will be taken on the next turn. Dice rolls are also used to decide the outcomes of actions taken by characters in the game.

d20 Pony contains the following tropes:

• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • When starting the Temples and Titans game:
  Dawn Break: Your choices are: the fearless fighter, the agile archer, the devoted druid, the wrathful warrior, the treacherous thief, the mighty monk, the wicked warlock, the wondrous wizard, and the caring cleric.
  • Astora has a science department called Antimagic Apparel Advancement.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: The siren Furia Storm adopts a pony disguise while among ponies, so that they don't freak out or try to imprison her again.
• Alliteration & Adventurers: Temples and Titans is a pony equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons.
• Ancient Order of Protectors: The Paladins of Dawn took on the task of finding retrieving the shards of the Philosopher's Stone, to prevent their corruptive influence from spreading.
• Animate Inanimate Object: The Silicone Olisbos of Come to Life.
• Anti-Magical Faction: King Empyrius of Midgard forbids all sorcery within his empire, and places anti-magic fields around his cities to be extra sure.
• Artificial Limbs: Rocket Rush lost all four of her legs in an aircraft crash, so she has metal prosthetic replacements instead.
• Art Evolution: The art becomes noticeably more detailed and intricate as the comic progresses - later comics have much more detail in the shading and lighting than early ones.
• Art Shift: When characters are recounting legends or memories, these are illustrated in a whimsical storybook style.
• Artificial Gill: Sea Swirl enchants Trailblazer and Moonflower's choker necklaces with an Aquatic Respiration spell.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Well, Moonflower certainly thinks this whenever Trailblazer is a stallion...
• Bad Liar: Trailblazer's ability to lie depends on how well she rolls for her Charisma check, so this can vary. Notably, in this panel, Trailblazer makes an absolutely atrocious attempt to deceive, due to a combination of poor instruction and a very bad roll. And the fact that Moonflower doesn't realize they're supposed to be lying.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Captain Moor discovers that Furia Storm is not a pony but a disguised siren, he summons the guards - and then orders them to protect her, in gratitude for her saving Amblerta.
• Beware My Stinger Tail: Sea Swirl's Temples and Titans character uses a tail-mounted flail for combat, which she can charge with electricity for more damage.
• Beyond the Impossible: In their Temples and Titans game, Trailblazer's character succeeds in looking so unfathomably cool that a set of magic sunglasses manifests out of nowhere from the sheer awesomeness of it. And he keeps them for the rest of the game!
• Bird People: The harpies are the wings-with-claws kind. They also have a wingless relative, the tengu.
• Blatant Lies: "You tell Minuette that you totally brushed your teeth earlier."
• Blindfolded Vision: Bat ponies are nocturnal and have difficulty seeing during the day. Moonflower gets around this by wearing a hat to shield her eyes, but more well-equipped bat ponies forgo their sight entirely by blindfolding themselves, presumably navigating by echolocation alone.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Trailblazer appears to look directly at the viewer in this panel.
• Boomerang Comeback: Tonsoria pulls off an epic one in her fight with Trailblazer.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
  Waiter: For our nondrinkers, we also serve milk, tea, and milk tea.
• Captain Ersatz: Ruby Heart and Sapphire Heart are a clear Shout-Out to Team Rocket of Pokémon: The Series; if their appearance and their names weren't enough of a hint, they even do the classic Team Rocket-styled introduction.
• Catch and Return: During a pillow fight, Moonflower simply catches Trailblazer's thrown pillow out of the air and lobs it back at her.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The seadog that Trailblazer initially scares off in Amblerta comes to her rescue much later after she and her friends are captured at sea.
• Childish Pillow Fight: Moonflower starts one during their sleepover. (Admittedly, Trailblazer had it coming).
• Conveniently an Orphan: Trailblazer was raised in an orphanage.
• The Chosen One: Moonflower became this for her Clan after a vison revealed her to be the next oracle.
• The Corruption: Touching or holding a shard of the Philosopher's Stone has a corrupting effect, transforming even ordinary creatures and ponies into evil, nightmarish monsters.
• Could Say It, But...:
  Novelty: And look, if you're still looking for that Yggdrasil tree of yours, you'd have better luck searching in Elysia. More specifically, under the city of Elysia. And you didn't hear this from me, are we clear?
• Curse Cut Short: Sea Swirl's character Whirlpool attempts to describing the appearance of multiple enemy tentacles, but is interrupted by the Game Master:
  Whirlpool: And this time, there's three of them! That's one for each of my—
  Dawn Break: Combat has started.
• The Cutie: Moonflower is an endless fountain of squeaky cheer and optimism. Unless you take her hat.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Grinning One is a ghostly inhabitant of the Realm of Darkness whose true face instills terrifying nightmares in those who see it - but she's also quite nice, helpful, and good-humored. Trailblazer even tries to flirt with her. It doesn't end well.
• Day Hurts Dark-Adjusted Eyes: Bat ponies are nocturnal and their eyes are adapted for night vision; they therefore have some difficulty seeing in daylight. Moonflower compensates by wearing a hat to shade her eyes. Other bat ponies blindfold themselves completely and rely on other senses to get around.
• Deadpan Snarker: Furia Storm.
• Deliberately Distressed Damsel: Sea Swirl has a blatant tentacle fetish, and will take any opportunity to get herself captured by something sufficiently squirmy. Much to the annoyance of her fellow Temples and Titans players.
• Depending on the Writer: While there's only one writer, they are somewhat at the mercy of whatever action ends up being decided by the players - therefore, Trailblazer has a tendency to make rather strange decisions from time to time.
• Dream Walker: Princess Luna. A long time ago, the Bat Ponies were also able to enter other ponies’ dreams but lost the ability in the centuries after Nightmare Moon’s banishment. At least until Moonflower’s dream walker abilities were awaked after becoming an oracle.
• Double Entendre:
  • Trailblazer often resorts to these while flirting.
  • Tonsoria and Trailblazer get through plenty of them while making love - not too surprising, considering that Tonsoria is about the only one who's ever managed to match Trailblazer in the flirting department.
• Double Speak:
  Moonflower: ... I wish I was brave enough to test potions like that. Heehee!
  Furia Storm: Brave is one way to put it.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Captain Moor plays a joke on Furia Storm by pretending that he's about to arrest and imprison her, when actually he's congratulating her. Considering that Furia was locked up by ponies for hundreds of years and fears it happening again, she is decidedly unamused by this. At least the Captain apologizes for the joke's poor taste.
• Easy Sex Change: The Ring of Alter Sex magically changes a pony into their opposite gender when put on, with no discomfort or adjustment period needed. Nopony particularly seems to mind, if they even notice.
• Epic Flail: Zaroun the Zebra wields a rather exotic one, a sturdy wheel attached by a rope to his hindleg.
• Everyone Has Lots of Sex: Equestrian society appears to be very sexually permissive; promiscuity is not discouraged, and there's a readily-available contraceptive potion for mares. There doesn't seem to be any taboo against same-sex relations either, although Trailblazer has ways around that in any case.
• Everyone Is Bi: Nobody seems to care what gender their sexual partner is - indeed, Trailblazer and Moonflower readily switch genders on the fly during their erotic escapades.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: The Philosopher's Stone physically corrupts those who wield it, turning them into terrifying monsters.
• Exotic Weapon Supremacy: Tonsoria's giant pair of scissors looks rather silly at first... until you see what she can do with them.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The other races of pony shunned the bat ponies hundreds of years ago and drove their clans underground, where they became elusive and rarely-seen. For that reason, many ponies don't even know that bat ponies exist, and bat ponies are extremely distrustful of the other pony races. Part of Moonflower's quest is the goal to bring all the pony kinds back together once more.
  • Ponies persecuted the entire race of sirens due to the actions of a few evildoers, which resulted in many innocent sirens being imprisoned.
• Fantasy Contraception: Mare's poison, a potion that cancels the estrous cycle of a mare to preventing her from foaling.
• Floating Continent: The Wind Shepherd village.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Rocket Rush.
• Game Master: Dawn Break runs the Temples and Titans game for her group of friends.
• Game Within a Game: On the train to Vanhoover, Trailblazer joins a tabletop RPG session - which means the player is now controlling her roleplaying a character in a game in the game.
• Gender Bender: The Ring of Alter Sex allows a mare to instantly and safely transform into a stallion, and vice-versa.
• Glowing Eyes: After she became the new Oracle of her Clan, Moonflowers eyes started glowing. The previous Oracle also had glowing eyes who returned back to normal once she lost her powers.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The siren in the Amblerta cave has evil red glowing eyes. And Trailblazer still tries to pet it.
• Gone Horribly Right: Trailblazer tries to flirt with one of the masked inhabitants of the Realm of Darkness. She succeeds... but then discovers that there is a very, very good reason that they don't remove their masks.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Trailblazer starts unarmed and doesn't equip her sword until much later (when she remembers she has one). She's not particularly proficient with it at first, but she gets better.
• Heroic Mime: Trailblazer does talk, but we never hear her voice directly in-game; instead, the game simply summarizes what she said. However, she does write her own quest journal entries, and her voice can also be heard when she's roleplaying her character in the Temples and Titans game.
• How Did You Know? I Didn't:
  Furia Storm: You knew.
  Captain Moor: Ah, so I was right. I may be getting old and half-blind, but unlike most ponies, it takes more than a mere disguise to fool me.
• Innate Night Vision: All bat ponies have this.
• It Was with You All Along: Moonflower's quest was to find a seed of the World Tree, Yggdrasil. She eventually discovers that the Philosopher's Stone they'd been carrying was an Yggdrasil seed all along.
• Joke Item: As part of a Running Gag, many of the stores that Trailblazer encounters are always selling at least one olisbos (a sex toy). This gets taken further when Trailblazer eventually finds a store that sells nothing but olisbos.
• Lens Flare: Used stylistically in some panels, for example here.
• Living Statue: The legendary paladin Solar Flare spent half a century as one, trapped in the Realm of Darkness.
• Mad Scientist: The Amblerta chemist fits the archetype to a tee, with a lab coat, wild hair, and even an array of garishly-colored flasks behind him (although the last is justified, since he sells potions). His erratic mode of speech suggests he isn't all there, either.
• Mathematician's Answer:
  Before you go, you ask Sapphire Kite if she has any advice on how to use a sword.
  Sapphire Kite: Certainly. Use your mouth to hold the handle, and swing the blade at your foe.
• Meaningful Name: These are practically a given in Equestria, and most ponies are likely to have such a name. Trailblazer, for example, is adept at pathfinding, while Moonflower is a bat pony with a natural talent for herbalism.
• Mermaid Arc Emergence: Sea Swirl pulls off a magnificent one in this panel.
• Mighty Glacier: Steadfast the Immovable, an enormous pony who prefers to sit behind his armor and a huge shield, waiting for the right moment to strike.
• Mix-and-Match Critters:
  • The spider-bear.
  • Also the seadogs, canines with cetacean tails.
• Mythology Gag:
  • One of the items sold by Lacuna is a "Silicone Olisbos of Come to Life". The Come-to-Life spell was first seen in the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Winter Wrap Up", where it was used to make inanimate objects move of their own accord. An olisbos is a sex toy, and you can figure out the rest yourself.
  • There are several oblique references to the events of the show episode "Amending Fences", such as Moondancer's uncertain relationship with Twilight Sparkle.
  • Sea Swirl's Temples and Titans character wields a tail flail as her weapon - a reference to the show episode "Luna Eclipsed", in which she dressed as a medieval knight and had the weapon as part of her costume.
• Named by the Adaptation: Dawn Break (Moondancer's older sister) first appeared in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, but wasn't named in-show.
• Nightmare Face: The Grinning One's face is a dark void that literally causes nightmares in anyone who looks upon it, which is why she wears a mask.
• One-Gender Race: Harpies (and their relatives, the tengu) are all female, and can only reproduce by finding males of other species to fertilize them.
• Orphanage of Love: The dream flashback in Chapter 8 showed that Trailblazer and her friend Honourshine grew up in one of these.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: Subject Eleven is an "equinculus", an artificial equine lifeform created by an Astorian scientist.
• Palette Swap: There's actually a potion called the Potion of Palette Swap, sold by the Amblerta chemist. Presumably it simply changes the hair, coat, and eye color of the drinker temporarily.
• Philosopher's Stone: An ancient artifact which imbues the wielder with immense power, at the cost of corrupting their body and mind.
• Phlebotinum Breakdown: Passing through the anti-magic barrier around Astora appears to confuse the Ring of Alter Sex about what Trailblazer's original gender was. As a result, she finds that her base form is now a stallion when she takes it off outside the city.
• Pillar of Light: Defeating the Titan of the Lake causes a beam of light to shoot into the sky.
• Power Nullifier: The cities of Midgard are protected by some kind of field that nullifies the magic of any being within its boundaries.
• Power Perversion Potential: Moonflower acquires a Ring of Alter Sex to change herself (or sometimes Trailblazer) into a stallion. Literally the first thing she does with it is use it for sex.
• Punny Name: One of the scientists at the Astora Local Botany Research department is named Square Root. You know, because plants.
• Really 700 Years Old: Princess Celestia initially appears as a young filly, apparently the result of a magical prank by Discord. In reality, she's more than a thousand years old.
• Remembered I Could Fly:
  Coast scout: Recovery diet, huh? I know that feeling. When I first joined the 'guard, I crashed my sailboat high and dry on a small desert island just an hour off the coast. It took me three whole days to remember I could use my wings to fly back!
• Rule Zero: Dawn Break is a cool enough Game Master to allow a bit of cheating for the sake of a satisfying battle.
• Running Gag: Players will nearly always try to have Trailblazer flirt with every character she comes across. Quite a few problems have been solved that way.
• Saying Too Much: An Amblerta cadet accidentally reveals that they knew Furia Storm was a disguised siren all along.
• Schizo Tech: Most of the world seems to be medieval-styled, with magical conveniences and some industrialization (eg. trains, airships). The Elysian Undercity, however, seems to be centuries ahead, with neon lighting, security cameras, recording equipment, data storage, and computer terminals. They have also developed modern modes of transport such as submarines and aircraft.
• Sdrawkcab Speech: Subject Eleven speaks this way, although it is still somehow intelligible by normal ponies.
• Second-Person Narration: Since you (the reader) are controlling Trailblazer, the game is presented entirely in second person - you can only experience what she does, and only her actions can be controlled.
• Serious Business: Players sometimes get a bit carried away...
  • Taking odd jobs in Ponyville:
  Amethyst Star: The offer is ten bits, and an ice cream cone. Would you like me to assign this task to you?
  Player: Say no more. Take that task. Ice cream.
  • When battling against the similarly-spirited Tonsoria:
  Player: This is our hardest challenge yet... outflirt the flirt!
• Shear Menace: Tonsoria's weapon of choice is the "greatscissors" - literally a giant pair of scissors that has to be wielded two-handed.
• Shock and Awe: Whirlpool uses a spell to electrify her tail flail.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Amblerta magic shop sells a Broom of Come to Life.
  • "Considering the situation you find yourself in, you come to the conclusion that the only winning move is not to play."
• Storyboarding the Apocalypse: Trailblazer has a nightmare vision of the end of the world after gazing upon the true face of the Grinning One.
• The Speechless: Lacuna of the Magi's Quarters does not speak at all, instead communicating via nods and gestures.
• Tail Slap: Whirlpool performs these in combat with her tail-mounted flail weapon. Sometimes with a dose of electricity for an added kick.
• The Tease:
  • Trailblazer is a massive flirt - mostly because the readers are controlling her actions, although the creator certainly isn't doing much to discourage it.
  • Later on, Trailblazer meets Tonsoria and finds her to be even more of a flirt than she is.
• Tempting Fate: "You agree to drink the experimental potion. How bad can it be?" ^note Things get a bit hairy.
• That Came Out Wrong:
  Windcaller: Do you sleep with a... bedtime toy? ^note He obviously meant a stuffed animal, but Moonflower was thinking of a very different kind of bedtime toy.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Furia Storm is... less than happy about being imprisoned by ponies for hundreds of years. It's clear she's only a stone's throw away from just becoming a monster out of spite.
• Three-Way Sex: Trailblazer's sleepover with Moonflower and Windcaller ends in a threesome.
• Too Dumb to Live: Because she is controlled by the players, Trailblazer occasionally makes some questionable decisions. Examples include:
  • Attempting to pet a siren
  • Drinking a completely unknown and untested potion, for money
  • Trying to flirt with a nightmare creature of the Realm of Darkness
  • Lying to Minuette about brushing her teeth
• 20% More Awesome: "Roll for coolness."
• Underground City: The futuristic Undercity of Elysia.
• Verbal Tic: Moonflower's lines are often punctuated by a high-pitched laugh ("Heeheehee!").
• Villain with Good Publicity: The majority of Midgard’s citizens view King Empyrius as just ruler who protects his citizens. Little do they know that he betrayed Solar Flare in an attempt to claim the Philosopher’s Stone power for himself and that he’s behind the monsters roaming Midgard’s wilderness.
• Waterfall into the Abyss: The Wind Shepherd floating island has these.
• Webcomic Time: As of the page posted on 15 November 2021, the comic has been running for 6 years, but only two weeks have passed in-universe.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Non-pony, in this case, but same principle. Ponies apparently have no qualms about locking up an (apparently) innocent siren indefinitely, purely because of the species' reputation as a fearsome monster.
• Wingdinglish: This page shows a newspaper with readable but distorted lettering, the same way that written Equestrian is often depicted in the show.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Philosopher's Stone has this effect - it grants immense power but twists the mind into evil madness.
• You Are Number 6: Novelty's equinculus is named Subject Eleven, or simply "Eleven".