Shanty

**"***For Shanty to earn a place as a true member of her pirate crew, she has to prove her worth. And it isn’t enough to meet the bar, Shanty aims to blow it out of the water. That means stealing the most valuable treasure in the world: which just so happens to be the Prophet’s Key! Only one who’s worthy? It’s gonna be Shanty!***"**
— **Shanty's character entry on Mane6 site**

**Shanty** is a young kid, who intends on stealing the Prophet's Key to earn her place in the pirate crew of The Capricorn. She fills in the niche of a stance type of rushdown gameplay.

## Appearance

Shanty is a small, brown goat with dark orange underbelly, and beige spots on her legs, muzzle and around her right eye. She has a small beard, a notch in her left ear, two small pale horns, tan hair tied up in a ponytail, orange eyes with horizontal slit pupils, and wears a teal headband with lighter stripes.

## Personality

As an aspiring pirate, Shanty values freedom, bravery, and looting. She's what can be described as a "meaner Arizona", as a result of being raised in a less heartwarming environment: she's more daring and reckless than the rest of the cast, and won't hesitate to threaten her opponent before getting down to brawling. Shanty will do anything to achieve her goal and prove herself to be the best pirate, even if it's not necessarily about saving the world.

## Story

Shanty is an orphan, picked and raised by Bravura and her pirate goat crew at a very young age. To earn her title of a true member of the crew, she must prove herself worthy. To do this, she has to steal the legendary Prophet's Key.

### Story Mode

Shanty's chapter of Story Mode has been confirmed to be not tied with the main arc. Instead it will serve as a bonus story, happening after six main and final one chapters.

## Development History

A goat character was first mentioned during the Indiegogo campaign, as the $546,000 stretch goal. Additionally, her stage, bonus story mode chapter, and music were the $560,000 stretch goal. Both goals were achieved within the campaign's final few days.

While "the goat" fighter was mentioned in passing in several development streams, no images, name or information was made available. Shanty was first publicly revealed at the closing ceremonies of the first Grand Stampede on August 9th, 2020. An in-depth stream focusing on her gameplay was set for August 14th.

Shanty was released as a DLC character on March 14th 2021. Her DLC included a playable character, homestage, music leitmotifs, and a pixel lobby sprite. In the 3.0 update on June 12th 2022, Shanty's DLC content became part of the base game, increasing a base roster count from six up to seven.

## Trivia

* Shanty is the first non-legacy playable character: she's not directly inspired by any character movesets from the previous project, like original cast.
	+ Being a goat character, several of her moves take direct inspiration from how goats act in real life. This includes clinging and climbing on the walls vertically, headbutting while standing on the two legs, and a timeout animation where Shanty freezes and falls over.
* Her name originates from a musical term - *shanty* is a nameless song, sung by sailors to accompany rhythm with their work.
* Shanty is the second character to have pupils in the playable roster. First character being Tianhuo, who possesses vertical slit pupils.
	+ Interestingly enough, horizontal pupils are generally a trait for the ungulates, but in popular media only goats are more commonly acknowledged as the animals who have them, which was the decision behind giving Shanty and her species pupils contrary to how all the ungulates but Longma in the game are portrayed without them.
* Shanty has three character select voicelines, unlike the rest six who only have two.
* The water effects, which are seen during Shanty's special moves, are only visual effects. She doesn't actually have water magic abilities, since Goatani is not a magical species.
* Shanty is tied with Arizona as the second youngest character in the cast. She's also the shortest.
	+ Despite her height, Shanty has the same size of hurtbox like everyone else. Her and Paprika (who's tallest in the cast) break this particular visual rule.

* It's implied Shanty drinks rum.
* She's the only playable character in the cast to not have any color palettes added by backers.
* It's not known who Shanty's parents were or what's happened to them.
* During Durian Drop (Level 3 Super), a goat captain named Subito Dal Segno can be seen on a ship; he commands it to fire cannonballs in Shanty's direction. This might imply that Shanty doesn't exactly get along with pirate crews outside of the Capricorn.