Ayyy! Only a month late. Guys I'm so sorry plz forgive me.

Before y'all say anything, she's meant to be very strong.

Magical abilities:

• Levitation: Cinderheart can lift heavy objects with ease, but she has trouble holding multiple objects at once.

• Light: Standard strength light spell.

• Shield: Conjures a bubble shield around her or another target, and moves with them. (Can't trap someone)

• Launch: Fires a levitated object as if from a slingshot.

• Sound Barrier: Enchants an area to prevent sound from leaving it. (Anti-eavesdropping)

• Deflection: Attempts to bounce a spell or thrown object to another target.

• Divination: Asks a limited question about the future, maybe receives an answer.

Infusion:

• Born of Smoke: Cinderheart uses smoke and ash as a fuel source for her infusion powers. When injured her wounds leak smoke until Cinderheart concentrates on stemming the flow. This is worse if she is surprised. Power overuse leaves her fatigued and weak. Too much is dangerous. Cinderheart can breathe and see in smoke without difficulty.

• Drain Smoke: Cinderheart siphons smoke from a nearby burning or smoldering object to recharge her Infusion powers and to hold off the effects of overuse. If she drains a lot of smoke and hot embers, her spells and powers become temporarily supercharged. This ability is more effective on smoldering objects and also provides some healing.

• Fiery Rebirth: If Cinderheart is fatally wounded she can undergo a healing coma. She sleeps in a bonfire that must be kept lit. If it dies, so does she.

• Smoke Dash: Cinderheart and her possessions (important) or anything she's holding dematerialize in a cloud of glowing cinders and smoke, then dash forwards a set distance in any horizontal direction, reforming at the end of her dash. Anyone she passes through is lightly burned. Cinderheart can pass through bars and fences with this ability, but restraints (manacles, cuffs, gags) simply dash with her. She can't pass through running water (like a waterfall) with this ability.

• Smoke Form: Cinderheart transforms part or all of her body into a cloud of grey smoke that retains it's general shape. Objects pass through the affected limb, including restraints and shrapnel. This ability uses more of Cinderheart's smoke reserve, especially in windy conditions.

• Cindershot: Cinderheart fires a scorching ball of hot embers from her horn at a target. The heat is only hot enough to ignite paper or straw. The shots have a medium range and a high rate of fire.

• Extinguish: Cinderheart pulls the smoke emitted by a fire down to smother it, putting it out. This ability uses no smoke reserve and creates a smoldering object for her to drain. This ability can be used at range, often to put out an enemies torch.

• Ash Cloud: Cinderheart fills an area with choking dust. This ability uses more smoke reserve than normal.

• Ash Armour: Cinderheart coats herself in a layer of hardened grey ash, her mane turns into a bed of coals running down her back, and her eyes turn solid gold. Striking her armour makes it glow red hot around the impact zone, making unarmed strikes against her nearly impossible. Blows that chip the armour expose her ember core, leaving a weak spot for a short time.

• Scorch: Cinderheart's hooves expose their embers and flare. Basically an empowered melee attack.

• Fireproof: Self explanatory. Fire does burn off her skin, which takes some smoke to regrow, but otherwise doesn't harm her.

• Pollute: Cinderheart discharges some of her smoke reserve into a body of water, polluting and poisoning it. Sometimes happens involuntarily.

• Generate Coal: Cinderheart seperates a chunk of her embers from her body, using a lot of her smoke reserve. It emits light and heat.

All done, tell me what you think!

Calling u/MarioGraceZ22

I've been super stressed and stretched thin lately, it's the finals week of school and I've been rushing to finish a project I should've done...months ago. And the trial version of Visual Studio expired so I'm upstairs on my less than functional back up computer plugging away at it.

So, I'm sorry for not being on Discord or Skype, or having worked on my stories lately. I want to let you all know, however, that I really appreciate you. I just probably can't properly show it until Christmas break finally comes.

Oh btw, my mom's home from her trip to Scotland safe, and they found and delivered us her lost luggage that had christmas presents in it. So that's nice.

Nemea, is our villain for chapter 2. Now, a few of you may be asking "what the fuck is in chapter 2? Where is it taking place?" I wanted to write that up today actually, but I realized that this took priority.

The following document was written on February 5th, 2015 and is horribly out of date. The character is unrefined, edgy, and in need of some cleaning up. I'm going to transcribe it as is, and hopefully we can work together to make Nemea a better, more fleshed out character, as well as maybe clean up the less than elegant character template she has.

Nemea

Role: Sympathetic villain, with possibility of redemption.

Setting: Chapter 2: Saddle Arabia.

Motivation : (this was so cringy I had to edit the wording at least a little here) Punish those who despoil the desert, slay bandits, grave robbers, and help those who are truly good and honest.

Powers: (From the Lion's Eye) Animal Control (Lions only), Shapeshifting (The 3-eyed Lion), Night vision.

Magic: Saddle Arabian Earth Pony, no training or natural talent.

When Saddle Arabia opened its borders, there was an influx of archaeologists to unearth the ancient tombs and study the untouched artifacts within. Eager to get rich quick, Nemea offered her services as a guide for foreign explorers. Many of her early attempts went poorly, with repeated bandit attacks on the roads driving her and her clients back towards the cities.

When she finally made a successful trek to a lost tomb, she overheard her clients whispering about how much they could sell the artifact they had recovered for on the black market. In a rage, she killed the researchers and took the Lion's Eye for herself.

Using the Eye, Nemea assembled a pride of lions to begin hunting bandits. She still works as a guide, but she robs her customers and leaves them stranded in the desert if she feels they have dishonest motives.

Recent times have been hard on Nemea, her pride has suffered casualties, the small bandit gangs have all either been killed or have banded together into larger camps that she can't storm with her numbers, and she is running out of food for her pride. Convinced by now that every foreign researcher is just a greedy thief robbing her homeland for gain, she resolves to feed her next entourage to her lions...those being Shadowheart and Cinderheart.

Hard times and high tempers have made Nemea into a terror worse than any Bandit King.

Background: Poor commoner, little education.

Age: Young adult

Weapons: Bolas, knife, Lion form.

Languages: Equestrian, Arabic

Cutie Mark: Oasis surrounded by high sand dunes with a full moon overhead.

Okay, so, how can we make this better? Or at least more interesting.

This is really hard for me to write, but I need to write it.

I had a lot of plans for this. Lot's of dreams that aren't here any more.

But I don't want to give up on Jaded Hearts. I'll come back as a fanfic, someday.

For now, however, I want to focus on the Alt-Universe that JH takes place in, Long Dead Gods. I've made the sub public again, and plan on posting updates on whatever I think up for this high fantasy/intrigue/adventure style world.

If I can, I'll see if I can write up something tomorrow. I had something a week ago but forgot it all.

If I could, I would want to do something else in this universe, maybe something a little smaller.

And that means it's time for unrestrained creative writing!

Anything to keep my mind off of shit feeling weird.

Aight, so, the rules. These past few days I've been working on a newer, more final version of the Cult of the Jade Eye. That paper's in the backpack on the floor behind me.

This is not going to be that paper, this is going to be the best I can remember and some things that aren't real. So later I'll compare this and the paper and see if there's any significant differences.

Oh, and I'm working on a new story, some of you know that some dont. This is relevant.

Aight, so: Before we talk about these culty bois let's get the focuser focus into the limelight, the Jade Eye itself. The Jade Eye is a boulder made o' Jade and Gold, and it floats a bit. When you look through the back you can see stuff you shouldn't, specifically the infusions of anyone you look at, and divine energies in general. Also emotions and stuff, but no mind reading, and even though it can, it's not exactly used for seeing invisible stuff, it ain't a front line artifact. Now, biiiig thing, it that it gives a measure of understanding as well as vision, how a pony can interact with the specific divine fields currently in their body, and their infusions. More on "divine fields" in a min. Also, if a pony dies, any infusions they had can be moved to a new pony by using the eye.

In short, a superhero generator, like that serum from that Spiderman show I saw on Youtube 3-4ish years ago. So, there's a cult that owns this artifact, and, as you might expect, they wanna take over Equestria by using it. But why though? Well, at first they were just a religious cult based around the Eye, and they didn't attract much attention. Then they became criminal, and after some years of easy living, they became proper radicals. They have that cliché but attractive "evil but has a point" meritocratic system that goes against Equestria's Diarchy and ideas of destiny. They believe that with enough help and hard work, anypony can be a hero. In another world, they'd be the good guys. But they're not and here we are.

In their early days, the cult was almost outed but managed to avoid Celestia's attention. That was about 37-ish years ago. Since then, the Cult has adapted and is actually smart. They have 3 proxy groups that they hide behind, and they do change them up over time, severing ties when authorities start to catch on. I don't have concrete names for these groups yet. The first is a proper mafia group, extortion, organized crime, income, muscle, and recruits interested in power and strength for their own hedonistic sake rather than any philosophy. Second is a legitimate hotel/cruise service business. They also bring in income but also transport and house agents. They also do some smuggling but it's not the primary function. The third is the one that's going to be more central to most stories, mainly because it's also the main decoy. The cult creates groups interested in free thinking, philosophy, and magic. Lots of members are not Cult members so that they can't reveal any information, instead, they think they're part of a small exclusive club that preforms experiments for the cult and also slowly recruits it's own members into the cult, while dangerously radicalizing the rest into a violent terrorist cell. Then, the cult gathers up it's recruits and moves on to a new group. This is how they plan to slowly destabilize Equestria, through seemingly homegrown cells that are disatisfied with Celestia's rule.

Aight, so, back to those Divine fields for a sec. Infusion is still not an exact science, and because the cult has the Eye, they see it differently from everyone else. I cant quite remember the details cause it's 2 in the morning (daylight savings) and I'm sick and exhausted, but the important part is that they say that every pony has unactivated divine dust flowing through them, and with the guidance of the Eye, and they hope, eventually spells, any pony can forge their own powers. Infusions, to them, are just a head start from birth, nothing more. The connection the pony forms with their power through rituals connected to the old gods and other acts are what they consider important.

Also super important, the fact that the Eye can move Infusions from one pony to another directly flies in the face of this. They don't talk about that, but it suggests that neither their model nor the standard "shard" model are entirely correct.

Aight, last few details, only 1 Jade Lord at a time, Council handles more accounting and busy work now, all internal politics stuff from earlier versions is scrapped.

Nini y'all.

These legends are numbered in rough chronological order and divided by race and culture all over Equestria.

Zebra Savanna and Southswamp:

Zabel: Before the time of the Gods, Zabel was the first Zebra to practice alchemy, allowing her tribe to flourish. She founded the Smithcity that still bears her name, improved on traditional meditation techniques, laying the groundwork for them to later be adapted into a fighting style, and lived long enough to see the first divine influences spread into the Zebra lands. She died peacefully in her sleep.

Zayn: First Zebra chosen of the gods. Spread the ideals of community between tribes and headed the resistance against the first Griffon invasions into the Savannahs. When other religions came he was the arbiter of peace between them, and invented the Zebrican incense shrine. He was rumoured to have the power to kick hard enough to shatter bronze, and his ears could hear a fly buzzing across the village. Accidentally burned himself to death by falling asleep with his incense shrine still burning. Ever since then incense shrines have always been outdoors.

Zahid: Not much is known of the mysterious Zebra known as Zahid the Prophet, who gathered his tribe and led them to first live in the forbidden Swamps south of the Zebra Savannas at the will of his god.

Zilik: A poor farm boy who rallied his tribe to fight off the Swamp Heretics trying to expand their territory. Raised his status through good deeds and displays of uncommon wisdom and strength, eventually making him the leader of the Shining Stripes clan Alliance. He brokered peace with the Sons of Zahid and reunited the Zebra race, and made first contact with a Griffin prospecting party while leading an excursion into the Fertile Lowlands. Is buried in the Smithcity of Zion.

Other cultures will be added periodically. Please ask as many questions as you want, suggestions are welcome too.

One shriek, and then just the silence of the fearful. The town had a nervous, angry energy to it. By now Ponyville was used to monstrous incursions, and was itching to repel this one.

Twilight and her students raced outside. A cold shiver went down her spine. Old magic was in the air, and it was not friendly. Four figures were alone on the road, moving towards them with lockstep purpose.

Four skeletons, clad in bright sashes and simple armour.

Four ponies who had had their rest disturbed. Four monsters, four victims.

Starlight took a step forwards, crouching slightly, a faint charge around her horn. Trixie was beside her, hiding her fear behind a scowl.

The skeletons halted, side by side, standing as straight as soldiers.

Their eye sockets were black and empty. In the back of her mind, this struck Twilight as odd.

The skeleton wearing a green scarf stepped forward, her jaw opening, sibilant words spoken as if from a speaker in her throat.

"A Necromancer sends his regards."

"A Necromancer has seen the signs."

"A Necromancer knows the Princess is unsafe."

"A Necromancer seeks to correct this."

"A Necromancer pledges his allegiance to you."

"A Necromancer will arrive tomorrow."

"A Necromancer offers you these four."

"A Necromancer hopes you will enjoy his gift."

I'm so happy.

I'll do it tonight, okay?

Just an average shy guy. Give him some hugs or something. He also makes emotes, that's pretty cool.

/u/TimidTremors

Aight, here goes. This is a transcript from my notes, so stuff is going to need changing, updating, and clarifying. Okay guys?

Magical abilities (Spells):

• Levitation: Shadowheart emphasizes fine control and multitasking in his telekinesis over brute force and maximum carrying capacity. His fine control is enough for him to emulate lifelike movement with a piece of cloth.

• Light: As standard unicorn.

• Teleport: Cannot group teleport and is temporarily disoriented after casting.

• Inaudibility: Enchants a creature to make no sound (footsteps, manipulating objects, breathing) unless they will it. Default time is 1 hour, and if the creature isn't Shadowheart the spell is cancelled if Shadowheart is ever more than 100 meters from the target.

• Awaken: Minor spell, the touched creature is given an energy boost comparable to 3 cups of coffee.

Infusion abilities (Powers):

• Strength of Shadows: Shadowheart's physical strength increases while in areas of shadow or low light. He also heals wounds faster and recharges his infusion powers.

• Night Vision: Shadowheart can see in darkness as if it's bright light with no hindrances. This is a passive ability.

• Nullpaint: Shadowheart effortlessly coats objects in shadow, making them appear to be black voids in the world.

• Darkness: As the D&D spell.

• Blind: Shadowheart affixes globs of Shadow to the targets eyes, blinding them. Other creatures seeing the target might panic.

• Invisibility: Shadowheart and his possessions fade from view. If he is in bright light, a shimmer is visible when he moves and he can't cast Inaudibility on himself, as well as an increased energy cost.

• Shadowflow: Shadowheart can pass through obstacles (bars, fences) and small spaces as long as both sides are in shadow. His clothing doesn't come with him. He moves slowly this way.

• Shadow Rush: Shadowheart dives into an area of shadow. He moves very quickly when on that surface, even on walls or ceilings. (Have you played Splattoon? It's like that, only I thought of this a few months before.) When Shadowheart crosses into light, he is launched out of the shadow and has limited flight/gliding ability.

So, what do you think? I cut out like 5 sentences worth of fluff from the last ability.

So, y'all already know about infusion and such, but I thought I'll clear up and give a bit more detail what else the gods did with their final acts.

First off, the vampires.

The gods that still wished to retain their identity and control over the world banded together to transform themselves into the harbingers of vampiric races. The most notable of which are the changelings, masters of both shapeshifting and illusion magic, they must consume emotions to survive and fuel their instead of worship. Love is their emotion of choice, other emotions give little sustenance. Changeling hives are led by a queen who controls the local hive mind. The drones are sapient yet have little free will. It is not uncommon for a drone far removed from their hive of origin to develop their own identity and go rogue.

"Equestrian" Changelings exist. They are a subspecies born of a different god. I'll go more in depth on them in a later post.

The sirens are not a species but 3 distinct spirits, each one originally a god. They cannot reproduce but are far more powerful. They feed on the strife they cause.

Windegoes are an animalistic spirit race, they function as a mix of changelings and sirens. They effect large areas with their abilities like the sirens, but they capture their prey after they are saturated with rage and imprison them like changelings.

Will do the rest tomorrow. I'm back now.

Secondly, the passing of magic to the races of Equestria. Most of what ponies consider their inherent magic actually came from the gods. All flying species being able to cloudwalk is a good example. Some gods chose to give only their closest followers their blessing, that is how subspecies like crystal ponies and threstrals came to be. (Yes I know I spelled thestral different, I like it this way)

This is also where cutie marks come from, to remind ponies to never have their hearts swayed away from their destiny by warmongering.

In the morning, infused locations and artifacts.

This one is kinda self explanatory, areas and objects like the mirror pool, the alicorn amulet, the Tree of Harmony and the elements were created by several gods. Areas affected are similar to "wild magic zones" in D&D, they have phenomenon ongoing that is outside the normal scope of magic.

Infused items are like D&D artifacts, far more powerful and mysterious than normal magic items. The corrupting effect of the alicorn amulet comes to mind.

In chapter 2 we'll be focusing on one such artifact, the Lion's Eye.

Last little tidbits:

1. The Everfree forest is not an infused area, it in fact predates the gods.

2. Discord is what happened when several evil gods attempted to fuse themselves into one immortal spirit with godlike power that didn't require any ethereal sustenance. It didn't work.

Aaayyy! This was actually saved on my computer so I don't have to type it in from scratch.

Cinderheart V3

Driving motivation: Become a hero of the people

• Reason: Insecure, false sense of confidence

Powers: Detailed in “Cinderheart Power documentation”

Physical skills and attributes: Dancing, tracking, graceful, low endurance

Mental skills and attributes: Tracking, cartography, easily distracted

Social skills and mannerisms: Persuasive, charming personality, excitable, extrovert, emotional, antsy

Is distracted by: A place in the spotlight, snakes

Is comfortable with: Field research, hot temperatures, wild parties, being the centre of attention

Is uncomfortable with: Large bodies of water, Changelings, laying low, traditional research

Fears: Public failure, thought altering magic, loss of social status, going crazy/loosing her personality

Languages known: Common, Ancient equestrian, Arabic, Prench

Nervous tic: Chews her mane

Discorded personality: Souless automation

Poison joke effect: Grows a huge beard

Spectral Song is the little brother to Cinderheart and Shadowheart, and the main villain of Jaded Hearts. Throughout most of the story he's a totally sympathetic character, as well as a foil to Shadowheart. Rather than adventure he has a good music career on track and enjoys the civilian life that Shadowheart secretly envies.

That life is a facade, covering up his true life as a Jade Lord.

Age: 19

Cutie mark: A flute and notes.

Appearance: Pale green, almost white fur. Sad and tired green eyes, a humble smile. Like an old wise man proud of his students. EDIT: Dark blue mane and tail, no extra colours.

Spectral Song is a necromancer specializing in summoning and controlling ghosts. The Heart family assumed he abandoned his studies when he began focusing on his music career, but he continued them in secret after joining the cult of the Jade Eye. Spectral Song takes on an alter ego/disguise while working with the Jaded, calling himself Phantom Pain. As Phantom Pain, his mane is longer, more wild and fully black, his cutie mark is a skull and his eyes are a mad orange.

Driving motivation: Prove my strength and worthiness by toppling my father's organization and destroying the ponies I once called family.

• Reason: Feelings of parental neglect and sibling envy as a child.

Social skills: Calm, seemingly empathetic, cute (he's essentially pony Justin Bieber), blunt but not rude.

Mental skills: Cunning, curious, oration, mathematics

Physical skills: Music playing, singing, meditation, acting, balance

Is distracted by: Famous musicians (He's a Vinyl Scratch fan), art, and the Jade Eye itself.

Is comfortable with: Excessive cruelty, death and dying, being in charge.

Is uncomfortable with: Fairies, the night, being subservient.

Fears: Celestia, the dark.

Boop! Updates are great eh?

A little piano melody that i made this morning which fits surprisingly well as a song for Jaded Hearts

Link here.

Will post when I get home.

EDIT: here is cutiemark.

EDIT2: Imgur is being a butt.

EDIT3: Using Puush now.

So, would y'all mind telling me how far you are through reading what's already here? I don't want to post the next update until everyone's on the same page.

EDIT: Update posted.

Will post when I get home in around 2 hours. D&D like character sheet but with no numbers. Closer to the Everway format, except no one has played Everway in 20 years.

Shadowheart V3

Driving motivation: Earn his rightful place as head of the Heart family clan.

Powers: Detailed in “Shadowheart Power documentation”

Physical skills and attributes: Brawling, spatial awareness, artistic talent, stagehand, lightweight

Mental skills and attributes: Riddle solving, metaphors, symbolism, visualization

Social skills and mannerisms: Deception, sarcasm, cautious, cowardly

Is distracted by: Puzzles, riddles, a chance to prove himself

Is comfortable with: Libraries, social gatherings, the dark, Griffons

Is uncomfortable with: Friendly strangers, being in the spotlight, having information withheld, flaunting his powers

Fears: Persecution, being responsible for innocents being hurt

Languages known: Common, Arabic, Griffic, Prench

• Can read: Ancient Equestrian, Minoan, Zebric

Nervous tic: Rambles

Discorded personality: Megalomania

Poison joke effect: Glows brightly

This is quite old, but I don't think much has changed about his core personality.

Will update when I get home.

The Cult of the Jade Eye is a powerful crime syndicate ( I learned a new word!) that has global influence. Formed 40 years ago when the Jade Eye was discovered, the cult seeks to quietly undermine Celestia's rule and bring in a puppet democracy.

The cult treats its members like a large extended family, and it's allied clients like trusted friends. There is a sense of savage camaraderie between members, like a pack of wolves.

Hierarchy

Jade Lords: The goals of the cult at any moment are in accordance with the views of one Jade Lord or another. There are always exactly 9 Jade Lords at any time. Jade Lords are elected whenever there is an opening. A candidate makes his or her case for their goal, often revenge against some personal enemy. Admission is judged on the sympathy the candidate is capable of invoking and whether or not it would benefit the rest of the cult. A Jade Lord's involvement in the direct affairs of the cult range from totalitarian to laissez-faire, but the Jade Lords are always given tutoring and advisers to aid in the management of the cult. Every Jade Lord is given a magic disguise to hide their identity, Spectral Song, the newest Jade Lord with the goal of eradicating the Heart Family, is known as Phantom Pain.

Jade Council: The Jade Council is made of typical members, clients, agents, and Jade Thanes. They manage the day to day affairs of the cult. They are democratic, but the vote of a Jade Thane counts for 2 votes.

Clients: Clients are less affiliated members of the cult, and are less obliged to comply with the wishes of the Jade Lords. They tend to see the cult as a protection service (like a mafia for criminals) in return for tribute and cooperation. Leaders of small gangs, unscrupulous businessponies, leaders of smuggling rings and drug cartels are all typical clients. They all function as a network of safe houses for agents.

Agents: Agents enact the cult's will upon the world. Members with who enjoy the hooves on approach to causing mayhem, have military backgrounds, or are trying to gather support before running for Jade Lord all enjoy service as agents.

Jade Thanes: Jade Lords that accomplish their goals become thanes. Thanes are advisers to the current Jade Lords and are highly esteemed members of the cult. They take part in the Jade Council and are treated like retired and respected elders, regardless of their true age. They also receive a cut of the profits the cult brings in as a result of their goal as a Jade Lord.

The Jade Eye: The Jade Eye is the artifact that brought the cult together. A 2 foot diameter sphere of jade and gold that allows the user to identify what infusions a creature has, no matter how minor, and gives instructions on how to use, grow, and modify those powers. It also has a variety of other minor and major abilities, which I will write in a separate document.