Original idea by Warren Peace and Salted Pingas

This group is dedicated to stories about the creatures known as timber ponies. Those cursed by the bite of the timber wolf to turn into wooden monstrosities every new moon and turn on their fellow pony for flesh and blood...

Stories must have at least one of the following features to be posted:
a. Contain a character who is a timber pony
b. Be centered around the curse in some way
c. Be centered around the legends and tales of the curse

PM Admins if you have any questions at all.

Two hundred years after her banishment to her nighttime namesake, Nightmare Moon, in angry retaliation, dispatched a curse to the world below. Such was the curse that any who were bitten by a timber wolf, and lived, would come to resemble their assailants in more than just shape and form.

Every new moon, on the darkest of nights, the curse would turn the afflicted’s fur into wood and their teeth into fangs. For the night they would acquire an insatiable lust for flesh and blood, much like that of the timber wolf that bit them. During this night, they become a timber pony, a violent beast of the night.

While their minds degrade into that of a simple beast, their senses and stamina are heightened. They can smell even the smallest traces of blood from a distance. They can see clearly in even the darkest of shadows. They can hear even the quietest and calmest of heartbeats from a ways away. They can outrun any ground-bound pony and out-wrestle even the toughest of earth ponies. And while, perhaps, a foul taste or sense of nausea from their meal may linger after dawn, no memories from their night-time atrocities will remain.

While few cases and fewer fruitful investigations plagued the passing years, some things were made known to the ponies of Equestria…

~Like timber wolves, timber ponies have an inherent fear, and weakness, to fire. While they may still find a way around it, a simple torch is usually enough to ward off an attack…provided the fire stays bright and lit.

~Timber ponies have very light-sensitive eyesight. The shadows are where they lurk and attack. While light will not provide safety, it can be used to temporarily blind a timber pony.

~No arcane weapon is needed for the job of dispatching a timber pony. While their wooden skin may prove somewhat tougher than flesh, penetrating it will cause wounds. These wounds, as well, will remain even after the timber pony has returned to its original form and has often been used to identify timber ponies in daylight hours.

~Those bitten by timber ponies, those that live at least, do too come to share in its curse. However, they will retain their intelligence and are able to shift forms at will. Doing so will still fill them with a lust for blood, and sating this lust gives the afflicted a sense of ecstatic high. Very few are able to turn themselves in.

~The curse only effects equines, other species are immune. In addition, during their transformation, unicorn horns and pegasus wings are absorbed back into the body for the duration of the transformation. Pegasus timber ponies can't fly and unicorn timber ponies can't use magic. All timber ponies are technically "earth timber ponies."

However, it should be noted that in the Common Era the curse has largely died out. As more and more became known in the century following the curse’s inception, Celestia founded an order to contain it. The task of this order was not only to hunt down and eliminate timber ponies, but to thin the herds of timber wolves as well.

While she had not the heart to doom timber wolves to extinction, they were all eventually driven into the Everfree forest, and contained within its dark and mysterious depths. Stemming the problem at its root like this dropped the number of new timber ponies to practically zero and all remaining monstrosities were either captured or killed. The curse had finally been contained.

And so the order grew lax with disuse. Lack of any sightings or attacks let the curse fade into the back of society’s mind. Tales remained, but they became myths and legends, tall tales to frighten children and friends around the campfire at night.

And while it was truly contained a century before the return of Luna (who, by the way, retains no memory of the curse)...

…by no means did the curse die…