Full-res shots from this page (>>2144558).

Originally I was supposed to make a couple of generic thief minions. I didn’t really feel the inspiration for that, so I tried making them based on famous videogame thieves. Then they were too distinctive to be minions, so I made ninja minions instead (inspired by the old GMing adage that if you ever get stuck and don’t know what to do to move the plot along, suddenly ninjas!).

The henchponies are (as mentioned in the comic) Imoen from Baldur’s Gate, Isabela from Dragon Age, and Garrett from Thief, these being the most famous medieval-aesthetic videogame thieves I could think of who could also easily fit into the unicorn-pegasus-earth pony trifecta. While I gave them working pony names while I was designing the sequence, I’m not terribly fond of what I came up with, so unless Newbiespud has his own ideas of what their pony names should be, it’s a free-for-all.

I’m particularly proud (or possibly smug) about Imoen’s cutie mark (‘casting magic missile at the darkness’).