Cadance moseyed down the crystal boulevard toward the Crystal Palace, eyes shut and wings spread in contentment. It was a most magnificent day in the Crystal Empire. The sun was just the right temperature for basking, the newly-bloomed flowers smelled spectacular, the breeze was light, her husband was getting hurled from a fifth-story window, the weather teams were-
wait that one wasn’t good
Just as Cadance’s wings clamped tight in shock, Shining Armor slowly dropped into view in front of her, upside-down, hovering awkwardly in his own magic aura. He grinned. “Hi, honey.” He somehow managed to bob forward and give her a peck on the nose.
Above them, a familiar pony leaned out from the window that had recently been vacated of glass. “And another thing!” Rarity shrieked. “If you ever act so- so- unrefined around me again, I shall skin you alive and sell your magnificently shampooed coat as carpeting, you odious cur! CARPETING, I SAY! AND I SHAN’T EVEN GIVE TWILIGHT A DISCOUNT WHEN SHE TRIES TO BUY IT BACK FOR YOU!” Biting back a shriek, she vanished from the window.
“Do I want to know?” Cadance asked, staring up.
“Probably,” said Shining. He began rocking his head back and forth in an effort to turn himself upward. “But I can’t tell you because I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Cadance lightly grasped Shining’s tail and spun him around. “How can you not know why somepony’s thrown you out of a window?”
Shining released himself, dropping to the ground. “Spontaneity.”
“Shiny…”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know!” protested Shining. “I tried introducing her to that RPG that Witches of the Grove sent us-”
“And she doesn’t like RPGs?”
“Actually, no, she seemed pretty open…”
Seeing Twilight and her friends was great and all, but sometimes, it seemed like the only reason they were stopping in the Crystal Empire was because it was in the direction of the latest group of (spin the Wheel of Conflict…) yetis or what have you that needed a buck in the face and/or a friend (usually, it was “and”). Outside of holidays that made Twilight even more Twilight than usual, it’d been ages since Shining had been able to simply talk with her or any of her friends.
But when they’d run out for the latest Facebuck of Friendship early that morning, Rarity had opted to stay behind in the Crystal Empire. And so, Shining had an opportunity.
He lightly knocked on the door to Rarity’s room. It was late in the morning, but he didn’t want to wake her up from her beauty sleep or something. However, she didn’t sound the least bit tired when she warbled, “Come in!” He poked his head in; Rarity was standing in front of her mirror, putting the final touches on her mane for the day. As in, she was literally touching her mane to make atomic-level adjustments Shining couldn’t see. She glanced at his reflection and nodded. “Prince Armor.”
“Rarity,” Shining said as he sidled in. “Are you feeling okay? You didn’t go with your friends this morning.”
“Oh, certainly.” Rarity brushed her mane; it flowed like a wave. “But last night, Twilight started talking about all she knew about yetis.” She spun around and stared at Shining with haunted eyes. “All she knew.”
Shining winced. “I am so sorry.”
“Which resulted in me being rather tuckered out from Twilighting for a week,” Rarity continued. “I’d gladly go gallivanting off with the others, but Twilight was still talking. Otherwise, I feel perfectly perky, thank you.”
“Great! Do you have any plans for the day?”
“Not yet, although I know the Empire has some wonderful-”
“Wanna play an RPG?”
“An RPG?” Rarity’s ears perked up. “As in, one of your Ogres & Oubliettes games?”
“Not quite. You know the kirin? Cadance took me to visit their grove a few weeks ago and I brought along O&O to pass the time. Some kirin got involved, and they liked it, and they decided to make their own version. And now…” Shining levitated out the box he’d been hiding. “…here we are. They sent a prototype to me for playtesting. It could use a little work, but it’s really great!”
“Ooo. May I?” Rarity took the box from him and examined the cover. “Kirin & Cultivation?” she asked, frowning. “I thought alliteration only occurred when the letters were the same. I won’t deny it sounds beautiful, but…”
“Actually, phonologically speaking-”
Rarity flinched. “Never mind. I just said I’d had enough Twilighting, hadn’t I? Second-hoof Twilighting is no better.” She looked at the box again, hmming. “I suppose I might be up to it. What sort of game is it?”
“So I guess she objected when she heard it was mostly about combat?”
“You don’t know her very well, do you? She’s friends with Twily, she knows over a dozen different martial arts. And she knows each at a different skill level, just so she can wear all the different belt colors at once and still be Proper. No, she was fine with that…”
“It’s in the name,” Shining said as he pulled items from the box. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to play some simple games to see how the mechanics worked — a few basic maps, empty character sheets, dice, and miniatures. “Cultivation is… basically, in kirin stories, it’s ascending to godhood through meditation, hard work, and self-improvement. They’d say Twilight and Cadance became alicorns through cultivation.”
“Oh my!” Rarity gasped. She was actually almost bouncing in place, like she’d touched whatever store of giddiness Pinkie Pie possessed. “That’s the aim of the game? To become gods? That sounds magnifique! But how do we do it?”
Shining grinned. He’d got her. “You need enough Grace — it’s a resource that allows you to go up divine levels- Heh, wait, sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. Martial arts, mostly.” He flipped open one of the guidebooks and passed it over to Rarity. “Here’s a list of the ones you can learn.”
“I assume that, in addition to the usual hoof to the face, they also take a look at the spiritual side?” Rarity asked as she began reading. “I’ve found tai zhì to be quite calming and- Oh, look, tai zhì is one of the arts.” She skimmed it, then nodded. “Yes, this appears to be properly balanced between physical and mental advancement.”
“Oh, and martial arts aren’t the only way to get ahead. There are plenty of different Arts to choose from.” Shining flipped forward another few pages. “See, here are the domestic arts. Being a goddess of cookery or a goddess of clothes might not sound like much, but you’re still a goddess, right?”
Rarity didn’t respond.
“Rarity?” Shining looked up. Rarity was staring at the sourcebook, stock-still, a look of delirious glee on her face. Shining rolled his eyes and bopped her on the nose, just lightly enough to start her up again. “Yes,” he said, preempting her question, “you can reflavor ‘goddess of clothing’ to ‘goddess of fashion’. As you gain levels, you earn Style points to tweak your Art into something more unique. It’s basically a homebrew system built right in.”
Rarity didn’t seem to be listening. She was still gazing at the Clothier Art with downright rapturous awe, high-pitched giggles escaping her.
“Wow. She sounds… really into it.”
“I told you I didn’t know why she threw me out! When she did, it was so sudden. It was like… Almost like a reflex.”
“So was it during character progression?”
“No, she was fine with that…”
“So, tell me,” Rarity said with big eyes and a very wide smile, “how does one become the goddess of fashion?”
Shining might’ve been a little more nervous if he didn’t know the feeling well; he got it every time he read a new splatbook for O&O. “That depends on your Class,” he said smoothly. “When you pick a Class, you decide which of your stats you level up to get more Grace, and which of those stats determines how you refine your Art. So if you pick a Class that focuses on, say, Clarity, it means you like using your mind to its limits, so your clothing designs are wild and creative. If you focus on Pragmatism, you like getting the job done, so your clothes are simple while having other advantages.”
“Oh me, oh my…” Rarity rocked back and forth, eyes shining as brightly as her coat. “They’ve put a lot of thought into this, haven’t they?”
“Kirin are big on creativity. It helps them keep their anger down.”
“Which keeps the nirik population low, of course, and the grove not burned down.”
“Okay, seriously, I don’t get it,” said Cadance. She looked up at the window again. “Everything you’ve said about this says Rarity would love. What made her turn on a dime and throw you out?”
“Seriously, I don’t know!” protested Shining. “I was just reading out the rules for character creation when-”
He came to a dead stop, all expression vanishing from his face. “Oooooooooh,” he said in a small voice. “That’s why.”
“What’s why?”
“I guess you want to play?” Shining asked. “Fashion divinity awaits.”
“Indeed it does,” Rarity said with a high-pitched giggle. “Where can I read up on how to create my character?”
“Right in here.” Shining nudged the Player’s Hoofbook over to Rarity, who promptly seized it and buried her muzzle in it. “We can start with high-level characters if you want.”
“Oh, let’s see,” Rarity said vaguely. “I doubt divinity would be all that satisfying if I didn’t properly work for it.”
“Fair enough.” Shining knew the feeling. Sometimes, playing a level 10 character you’d nurtured all the way up from level 1 was far more satisfying than playing a level 15 character who’d been given to you at level 15. As Rarity read, Shining looked through some of the premade adventure maps. What would be the best one for a fashion goddess-to-be?
Suddenly, Rarity spoke up again. “There’s a section here on Talents,” she said, “but I thought the kirin didn’t have special talents. No cutie marks and all.”
“They don’t,” Shining said with a shrug. “The developers just thought it’d be a neat gameplay mechanic, so as you earn Grace and progress through cultivation levels, even nonponies earn Talents.”
“Hmm. It does shake things up a bit.” Rarity continued reading on, but her face fell. “This is… rather complicated at higher levels,” she hedged. “I can barely make hide or hair of the rules.” Grimacing, she opened up the centerfold. “Is… Is that a flowchart?”
“Yeah, that’s one of the things they still need to work on,” said Shining. “It’s… Let’s be nice and say it’s a mess to beginners.”
“Forget nice,” Rarity said. She was examining the high-level rules like they were mystical curse runes. “That’s downright saintlike. Shall we start at level 1, then?”
“Yeah, that’s probably for the best. Go to the start of character creation and I’ll help you along.” Shining passed Rarity a blank character sheet and cleared his throat. “You start off your adventure,” he intoned, “as a young mare or stallion, not yet a full adult, new to the very idea of cultivation and a completely blank slate. You have no Talent, no Class, no Art, no Style, and no Grace.”
Rarity’s eye twitched, and suddenly, Shining was flying out the window.
