The Alternaverse Guide to Soulnames
One thing that has bugged ElfQuest fans for years is the question of soulnames. Who has them? Who doesn't? And just what are the rules for children born of parents with and without soulnames? Now, sadly, I don't have a portal into Wendy Pini's head (more's the pity) so I can only make guesses as to the rules in canon ElfQuest. But what I can do is give you the definite guide to soulnames in the EQ Alternaverse. So here they are, a list of all the known tribes in the Alternaverse and the soulname rules that apply.
Firstcomers (Coneheads)
The Coneheads' names are their "true names" or soulnames - in their society prior to the crash, they had no need for secret selves. Everything was shared openly, with no distinction between levels of intimacy. This way of life was destroyed when the Palace crashed. Being confined into one form (Timmain and fellow shapeshifters notwithstanding), one way of living, the elves struggled to adapt. The psychic communion of the Palace gone, the majority of Firstcomers and their children began to erect barriers around their innermost selves. Speaking and sending began to become completely different forms of communication. The advent of Recognition, which bound two souls in a way the Firstcomers had never experienced, also ensured that non-mated elves began to develop a sense of privacy unknown in the time before. In the case of some families of Firstcomers and Firstborn, it meant the conception of a word-sound-image that serves as a "key" to the inner recesses of the soul. Other tribes adapted to this new concept of "privacy" and "separate-ness" in different ways.
The Wolfriders
As in canon ElfQuest, Wolfriders all have soulnames, and have since the beginning of the tribe's creation. As the Firstcomers and their children began to adapt to the new world, they sought to define themselves in ways that did not exist back in the Palace society. The physical and the psychic world were no longer the same. With the addition of the wolfblood, the division between the two states grew. The wolfsong stood against the starsong. This saw the gradual creation of two different sets of names - a common tribename that defines an elf in the physical world, and the soulname that defines the elf in the psychic world. Within two generations of the Wolfriders' founding, the dichotomy of names was such that the soulname was considered too intimate to be shared with anyone but Recognized mate or parent and child.
The Gliders
One group of Firstcomers, led by Haken, founded the tribe of the Gliders. They reacted against the influences of the world and tried to recreate the intimacy and collective atmosphere of the Palace society. However, just enough time had passed that the effects of the World of Two Moons could not quite become erased. While the Gliders never developed the concept of a soulname, they always maintained just enough of a sense of "separate-ness" that prevented the creation of a true collective. This slight deviation from the society the Firstcomers remembered may well have become an obsession of Voll and Winnowill's. At any rate, the refusal of Voll and Winnowill to allow the Blue Mountain society to evolve eventually led to stagnation.
In the Alternaverse, the Sun Folk developed from an offshoot of the early Gliders. As they remained in the outside world, the gradual creation of psychic barriers continued. However, as Sun Folk soon lost the ability to send in the safety of the desert, they never reached the point of developing a soulname "key" as the Wolfriders did. Instead, a Sun Folk's innermost self could be better described as a feeling, not a word. After her Recognition to Rayek, Swift describes his soul as "silent."
Swift mulls over this difference in Culture Shock:
The Islanders (The New Land Elves)There was another matter intricately bound to the question of “nature”.... There was the matter of soulnames. Though Swift had done her best to keep it a secret, many of the Wolfriders knew or suspected that the Sun Folk – save Savah, perhaps – had no soulnames. They guarded their most private selves through sheer will; there was no special word-sound-concept blocking the doorway as with Wolfriders.
It had been a little hard for Swift at first. She had searched desperately for some hidden name inside Rayek’s psyche. For a Wolfrider to be without soulname was a nightmarish concept. But in time Swift had come to accept that Rayek was simply Rayek – albeit a far more... luminous Rayek than anyone else ever realized. She doubted the others would ever understand – not unless they in turn shared souls with one of the Sun Folk.
When the Wolfriders flew in the Palace to the New Land, they encountered several small communities of sea-faring elves. These pirates and island traders are the closest tribe to the Wolfriders in the matter of sending and soulnames. Like the Wolfriders, the New Land elves have soulname "keys" to their true selves. Like the Wolfriders, the Islanders are descended from a group of Firstcomers who remained in the forests of the Old Land, and who evolved soulnames as a result of frequent psychic and physical (vocal) communication. The Islanders emigrated from Homeland (Sunholt) several millennia ago, but by that time they had already formed the distinct concept of soulnames. When Skywise Recognized the Islander elf Savin in A Different Wolfsong, the experience was very similar to Recognition between two Wolfriders.
The Go-BacksSkywise stared helplessly into her bright blue eyes. They seemed... impossibly deep.
“Nimh?” he whispered, the word tumbling from his lips.
**Fahr?** she replied, equally bewildered, a flush blurring the scattering of freckles on her fair cheeks. She blinked, once, twice, then a slow smile spread across her face.
“I....” she stammered, her smile turning to a grin. “You’re... oh... you’re beautiful...”
Skywise edged closer, spellbound. Before he was quite aware of it, he lifted his hand, his fingertips lightly brushing across her cheek. **Nimh.**
Again she blushed, averted her gaze, then slowly lifted her eyes back to his.
He had thought it would be terrifying. He had spent his young life fighting against the very idea of it.
But it wasn’t frightening at all. It made perfect sense.
Two-Spear and the offshoots of the Wolfriders travelled north, far away from humans, and began a new life in the Frozen Mountains. While they never lost the ability to send, they began to rely more and more on verbal communication. More importantly, their small numbers and the inhospitable environment of the Frozen Mountains meant they gained the ability to reproduce regularly without Recognition (non-recognition births outside the Go-Back tribes are possible, but very rare). As Recognition became unnecessary, it happened less and less, and thus the intense sharing of souls ceased between mates and parents and children. Two-Spear's mate Willowgreen removed the wolfblood of the early Go-Backs (the hows and whys have been lost to legend), thus eliminating the wolfsong, and removing another link with the Wolfriders. The only vestige of Wolfrider culture was the "Now of Wolf-thought" - though of course, the Go-Backs never called it that. No howlkeeper or storyteller preserved the memories of the tribe. By the third generation, the Go-Backs no longer when on spirit quests to find their soulnames. By the fifth generation, they had forgotten about the existence of soulnames.
Hybrids
Children born to a mixed-tribe couple, where one parent has a soulname and the other does not, may take after either parent, just as children born to wolf-blooded and non-wolfblooded parents may inherit either the mortal blood or the immortal. In the special case of a Wolfrider-Sun Folk mating, the child may well be born with a soulname, but no wolfblood, such as in the case of Suntop and Venka.
Some other examples of mixed-tribe children: (remember, these ONLY apply to the Alternaverse characters, not the original canon characters)
- Yun: Wolfrider/Go-Back - no discernable soulname, no wolfblood.
- Windkin: Wolfrider/Glider - soulname, but no wolfblood.
- Kimo: Wolfrider/Sun Folk - no soulname, but wolf-blooded.
- Ember: Wolfrider/Sun Folk - soulname, but only a trace of wolfblood.
- Cheipar: Wolfrider/Go-Back - soulname, but no wolfblood.
- Sust: Wolfrider/Go-Back - no discernable soulname, no wolfblood.
Losing Wolf Blood
In canon ElfQuest Skywise lost his wolf blood, but his soulname remained Fahr. Presumably his soul is not altered, and presumably the same rule applies to Windkin, who lost his wolf blood to Winnowill, but has a Wolfrider soulname.
The same rule applies in the Alternaverse. Many of the Wolfriders have chosen to voluntarily give up their wolfblood, especially since many have Recognized pureblooded elves. Their soulnames remain unchanged after the transformation.
Recognition in the Alternaverse
In canon ElfQuest, Skywise and Cutter are the only known example of a spontaneous discovery of soulnames that does not actually lead to genetic Recognition (for obvious reasons). When the same thing happened in the Alternaverse, however, there was no obvious impediment to Skywise and Swift Recognizing, yet what happened between them lacked the reproductive urge.
In fact, what happened between Skywise and Swift became the first example of a new phenomenon on the World of Two Moons - a discovery of soulnames without a subsequent reproductive urge - in essence, Recognition without pregnancy. So far this phenomenon has been confined to a select group of elves, most related to either Skywise or Swift. It should be noted that this is a very different event than the sharing of soulnames as in the case of Redlance and Nightfall - that was a mutual choice, while "discovery" (for want of a better term) is a sudden and unwilled event.
This "discovery" has been known to have happened in the case of Suntop and Quicksilver (true Recognition followed a century later), Yun and Wavecatcher (true Recognition has yet to happen), and Cheipar and Weatherbird. Something approaching "discovery" also appears to happen between Spar and Door. The circumstances of these incidents are widely varied. Suntop and Quicksilver discovered each others' soulnames at their first joining. Yun learned Wavecatcher's at their first meeting. Cheipar and Weatherbird had been lovemates for years before they found each other's soulnames.
"Discovery" is still a rare phenomenon. More common is either true Recognition, or the willing exchange of soulnames between non-Recognised lifemates. Venka and Zhantee exchanged soulnames (or soul-feeling, in the case of Zhantee) several centuries before they actually Recognized. Same-sex couples such as Pike and Skot, and Grayling and Hansha, have also shared souls. No word on whether Maleen and Ruffel have, however, as the two longtime lovemates appear to be keeping their options open.
Skywise and Swift, meanwhile, continue to hold the only instance of a "discovery" that never led to lifemating, lovemating, or even a drunken night at the dreamberry bush!
Forcing Recognition
There are two kinds of "forcing Recognition" in the Alternaverse. The first kind, which has appeared in canon EQ twice before, involves a one-shot "forcing" with a healer's aid. The healer's power helps to form a genetic bonding between the two partners that will approximate the drive of Recognition. This process usually entails a lengthy healing session, followed by joining and hopefully, conception. This method requires a great investment of energy by the healer, and a relatively low success rate. Canon EQ alludes to several failed attempts by Rain to force Recognition. In the Alternaverse, Rain and Moonsbreath tried many times before the healer was able to force Recognition. Rain later successfully forced Recognition between Nightfall and Redlance.
A less intensive way of forcing Recognition in the Alternaverse is sometimes called "fostering Recognition." Rain developed this technique after he realized that the intentive genetic bonding he performed on himself and Moonsbreath (which produced Pike) also resulted in an increased chance for spontaneous Recognition between the two. In fact, the lifemates Recognized two more times within the next fifty years. Since he had very little success with one-shot forced Recognition, Rain switched to a more gradual approach. In "fostering", the healer's treatments are much less intense, spreads out over several months, or even years. While these treatments do not actually force Recognition, they significantly increase the chances that the couple will Recognize spontaneously. Scouter, Dewshine and Halcyon were all the product of spontaneous Recognition following "fostering" treatments.
Bonus: Revealed Alternaverse Soulnames
A list of Alternaverse soulnames - both for original characters and transplanted canon charactes. More will be entered later as more are created. Will these soulnames change if Warp ever reveals another canon character's soulname? Suntop's and Ember's certainly didn't. Of course... Alt-Suntop and Ember do have completely different souls from their canon counterparts, due to their different parents. ;)
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Elfquest copyright 2014 Warp Graphics, Inc. Elfquest, its logos, characters, situations, all related indicia, and their distinctive likenesses are trademarks of Warp Graphics, Inc. All rights reserved. Alternaverse characters and insanity copyright 2014 Jane Senese and Erin Roberts.