Characters:Clyde Clopton

=Clyde Clopton XIII=

Physical Description
Clyde is an average-sized earth pony of thirty, sporting a warm grey coat, dark green eyes and a blonde mane and tail. He often wears a charcoal-grey waistcoat that moulds to his slender frame. Occasionally he dons a crimson-red cape with a high collar that hides his face and cutie mark, which is a round bomb with a lit fuse.

Personal History
Clyde was born in Sainglend to a family of professional thieves and spies, and raised to continue a tradition that had endured since the Renaissance. A particularly driving factor in the Clopton family is that they are descended from "Lord Dastardly", a pseudonym for one of the most notorious outlaws in the Sun Kingdom's history. A prodigy from a young age, Clyde graduated at the top of his class from Lord Dastardly's Academy for Up-And-Coming Villainy at the age of twelve, three years ahead of most of his peers. Much of his skill and ruthlessness as a villain came from years of harsh training from Arkham, a career criminal and servant of the Clopton family.

Clyde's success as a villain, even during his training, made him one of the most sought-after underworld operatives in Sainglend. While this made him a valuable asset to his family, this hardly made him popular with the authorities in several countries. Even in the middle of his training with Arkham abroad, the young Clopton was constantly clashing with the Royal Equestrian Guild of Archaeology, frequently crossing swords with an up-and-coming archaeologist and adventurer named Jenna Jutland. The two met when Clyde was fourteen, and would go on to share a bitter rivalry for several years, as well as several sporadic alliances and a brief romance that ended quite roughly for the both of them. An eight-year silence ensued between the two, during which Clyde's life suddenly and violently shifted for the worse.

By his mid-twenties, Clyde had long gotten over his rivalry with Jutland and returned to a successful career of thievery and violence. By chance, he found a lead on a treasure that had eluded even Lord Dastardly himself: a fabled stone tablet with power over the minds of mortals. The Tablet of Mashan, named for the vast and formidable mountain range it was rumored to be hidden within, stayed just out of Clyde's reach for three years. When he did find it, he found out the hard way that the Tablet of Mashan did have power over the minds of mortals - it drove them insane.

More specifically, the Tablet of Mashan was a trap meant for anyone who held the determination and lacked the conscience to find it in the first place. Clyde, a classic example of the villains it was meant to ruin, was afflicted with a powerful curse that reintroduced several aspects of his personality that he hadn't encountered since he was a child. He found himself host to an alternate Clyde, one with a conscience and compassion, and hardly any of his tact or skill. To make matters worse, it quickly began to manifest itself in his reflection, berating and harassing him at every opportunity for the evils he'd committed in the name of his family. His victories began to take the form of nightmares that would keep him awake for days on end, and his work suffered as his family's mages found themselves at wit's end, unable to simply remove the curse as they had never encountered this type of magic before. Clyde spent another three years slowly going mad and quickly losing favor in his homeland, unable to complete the masterful heists he'd once been famous for amongst the crime families of Sainglend.

Driven to desperation, Clyde took to using his ill-gotten arcane relics to set out and find a cure for his madness. The suppression of Discord and Nightmare Moon drew his attention to Equestria, where he used his magic relics to move his house. However, his habits of villainy and rapidly-declining intelligence convinced him to take over the small country town he'd moved to, and he quickly got the attention of the populace. Fortunately for him, his inability as a villain in his state gained him a reputation as an otherwise harmless nuisance, even - to his chagrin - gaining a few friends in the process. Sprinting Star, a colt who would become his protege and eventually be looked upon as his son, and Deloth, an offworlder who ran the local tavern, would prove to be Clyde's downfall as a villain, but also his salvation.

Sprinting Star, attracted to the idea of villainy by Clyde's style and enthusiasm, took it upon himself to become his partner in crime. Clyde jumped at the idea of having a henchman and took Star as his student. This was short-lived, however. Star, in his rush to become a proper villain, attempted to mug Deloth in the town square, and consequently started a brawl that ended with Del being launched quite by accident out of town and into an open window in Clyde's mansion. In his curiosity, Deloth found Clyde's journal and quickly became aware that the eccentric "criminal" was actually quite genuine, and was even planning to make his triumphant return to the criminal underground by taking over Equestria once cured. His frantic search for the Tablet eventually lead him to a hidden room in the manor, and face-to-face with Clyde, who had since returned home. Upon showing Clyde an old photo of him that he'd found, the resulting conflict in the pony allowed his alternate persona to manifest physically in the presence of the Tablet. The situation quickly soured, however, and the resulting fight ended with a forced reorganization of Clyde's psyche. He was no longer the villainous psychotic that he'd become, but he was by no means the bumbling fool that his alternate personality was forcing him to become.

Clyde spent the next several days alone in his manor, knowing that in his state he was effectively cured of his insanity, but he was hardly better, or even thankful. Terribly conflicted by the newfound guilt over his life's pursuits, Clyde, with the help of Del and Sprinting Star, decided to retire from villainy. However, lacking any skills besides that of a master thief, Clyde, out of necessity, opted to become a treasure hunter. There were volumes in the library about lost tribes and civilizations that had died out in the Everfree Forest during the reign of Discord, and Clyde tested out his new profession with Del and Star as his partners. Despite his eroded sanity and atrophied skills during the three-year downtime, Clyde quickly got back into the swing of things and made it known to the town of Ponyville that he was in buisness as an explorer and plunderer Everfree. This sort of boast doesn't take long to spread, however, and Clyde quickly gained the attention of his family back in Sainglend. Clyde's father, along with Arkham and several henchmen, came to Ponyville within the week and attempted to avenge the insult by attacking the former villain at his manor. Clyde and his new friends, however, proved to be much more tenacious and resourceful, getting the point firmly across that the evil Baron was no more. Clyde XII and Arkham retreated, humiliated at losing even with numbers on their side.

The next few months went by rather peacefully, during which Clyde's friendships strengthened and he shared more adventures with his crew. Forced to level his house after the battle with his father, Clyde moved into an apartment above the Dragon's Den tavern run by Del, and advertised himself as an adventurer for hire. Their exploits as treasure seekers and his reputation as a regular disturber of the peace attracted the attention of a name he'd not heard in nearly a decade. One night after a disastrous expedition in the Everfree nearly killed him and his crew, Clyde found himself sitting next to Jenna Jutland at the tavern. Despite their history as bitter enemies, the past eight years had done enough to cool things down between them. Jenna even came to his aid when he was kidnapped by a former colleague, joining his friends in a daring rescue in Manehattan. Over the following weeks, she came to see that the rumors were indeed true. Clyde had reformed, and for the better. She joined him on a number of adventures in Everfree, and even hired him as a demolitions expert on her own ship, the Clockwork. The respect the two had regained for one another quickly grew into something more, and one night, as they returned to Ponyville from the wilds, they agreed to give their short-lived romantic relationship another try.

Several months passed with little incident. Despite never gaining a single customer as an adventurer for hire, the plunder from the ancient cultures and colonies from the Everfree did more than enough to sustain him. His relationship with Jenna, while missing several years, had become very close. Captain Jutland's ship found need of his expertise again when she revealed her plans for an expedition to Kasoryg's Rest, the tomb of a monarch in the Sapphire Kingdom - the dragon lands. Not only that, but a very convenient series of events dropped the location of Dastardly's Tomb, the legendary resting place of Clyde's ancestor. Furthermore, their planned expedition was almost a straight line that would take them over both locations. Clyde moved onto the Clockwork and set to work in its armory, developing arms and excavation compounds for the adventure that would make the Clockwork crew's careers. While the trip was delayed for a few months, it was jarringly kicked off when Clyde's family kidnapped him a second time when they caught wind of their discovery. Needless to say, Jenna and the Clockwork's crew refused to let this stand. After several weeks of travel and battles over the sea and in Clopton Manor, Clyde's childhood home, the crew of the Clockwork reclaimed their demolitions expert and left the Clopton crime family in shambles.

Clyde has since continued the expedition to Dastardly's tomb and Kasoryg's Rest, only to finally return to Ponyville with his fiance and son.

Recent Accomplishments

 * Survived the downfall of the Clopton family, leaving himself the only apparent heir to its legacy.
 * Spearheaded the exploration of Lord Dastardly's tomb and survived his attempt to reincarnate himself by stealing the living body of his final blood descendant.
 * Proposed to Jenna Jutland (in the middle of a confrontation with a demon)