Original Quest Era and the Fall of Sorrow's End

Grayling grew up in a very fractured family. Trueflight took care of him, but was never particularly affectionate. Bearclaw never knew how to relate to him. Strongbow was ambivalent at best about his little brother. Grayling grew up into a shy, retiring elf, who preferred the company of Redmark and Woodlock to his more boisterous age-mates. When it became clear than a weakness in his left arm made archery difficult for him, Grayling rejected the signature weapon of his family and became a fisher instead - much to horror and disgust of Strongbow.

Ironically, the only one who showed any real affection towards him was his "step-mother" Joyleaf. When Joyleaf took Bearclaw's chief's lock and declared herself chieftess, Grayling was her strongest supporter. Grayling helped Joyleaf raise Swift, and brother and sister were always close. When the Wolfriders fled the Fire, Grayling followed Swift into the desert, and to Sorrow's End. There he found the peaceful way of life much more to his liking than the human-filled forests of the Holt. He also found Hansha, a young Sun Folk metalworker.

When the Wolfriders left Sorrow's End, Grayling chose to stay. His nephew Dart stayed as well, and with Woodlock, the three began teaching the Sun Folk to form their own band of hunters and defenders. In the next three years they founded their own miniature tribe of Wolfriders. To compensate for his weak left arm, Grayling devised a unique version of the arrow-whip, a spear-thrower or atlatl, and began to instruct the Sun Folk in its use. As the wolves and jackals interbred, Grayling founded the Jackwolf Riders. By the time the Sun Folk moved to Oasis, following the crisis at Sorrow's End , Grayling continued to lead the Jackwolf Riders, but was spending less time in the field, and more time with the ruling council of Oasis.

Final Quest Era 

As the millennia passed and the jackwolves succumbed to inbreeding, the Jackwolf Riders became supplanted by the Pride, the catriders lead by Sust and Coppersky. Grayling retired gracefully, to become a full time council member, and did his best to adapt to his less active role. But though he had his wolfblood removed long ago, Grayling never quite lost his Wolfrider soul. When Haken called for his followers to abandon Oasis in favor of settling the planet of Homestead, Grayling expressed reluctance at first, but soon found himself embracing the new adventure. 

Grayling now splits his time between Haven and the holt of the New Blood Wolfriders, serving as an elder to both tribes.     

Hansha
Grayling's "Green Eyes" made his debut back in Her Secret Soulname is Tam, but his face has been a part of EQ history since the beginning. You can just see the nameless elf running from the rampaging Wolfriders as they storm Sorrow's End back in Fire and Flight.

Original Quest Era and the Fall of Sorrow's End

The master metalworker of Sorrow's End, Hansha and his apprentices keep the Sun Folk well stocked in jewelry and also make the few metal weapons the Sun Folk use. Already an elder by Wolfrider standards when the Wolfriders arrived, Hansha was quickly won over by Grayling's youthful ways, and the two were exclusive lovemates within a few months. Lifemated seven years later when Grayling decided to found the Jackwolf Riders, the two are inseparable, and Hansha often tries to tag along on Grayling's expeditions away from Sorrow's End, partly to experience the Wolfrider joi de vivre, and partly to keep his lifemate out of trouble.

For nearly six hundred years they longed for children. When Grayling Recognized Alekah, the lifemates welcomed her - and her lifemate Jari - into their family. They all raised Fennec together.

Though normally quiet and soft-spoken, Hansha is never afraid to speak his mind, and the new threat to Sorrow's End has seen the shy metalworker taking a more active role in the frequent village council meetings. Hansha stands at average height for an elf, though his lithe build makes him seem smaller from a distance. His hair is rich black like Rayek's, and his eyes are a striking shade of emerald green.

Final Quest Era

While Hansha was far more skeptical about the move to Homestead than Grayling, he was not about to let Fennec go alone, and so gamely followed his family to found the new settlement of Haven.

Alekah
We see a beautiful little adolescent seeking shelter in the caves of Sorrow's End during the zwoot stampede of Fire and Flight. Six hundred years later, she enters Alternaverse history as the mother of Fennec...

Alekah was one of Grayling's reluctant warriors-in-training when she Recognized the Chief of the Jackwolf Riders. Despite being already lifemated, Alekah quickly yielded to her sensible nature and accepted her Recognition. She and Grayling pledged to be "as brother and sister" despite their one joining, and they managed to raise Fennec with a minimum of disagreements.

Though she is an accomplished archer, Alekah prefers weaving cloth on the loom, and in Oasis she has reestablished a peaceful life with Jari. A very graceful elf-woman, Alekah has thick black hair she often decorates with golden jewelry, and large golden-brown eyes the same shade as her ancestress Savah's.

Jari
The poor "dirt-digger" who could not keep up with Rayek on the climb up the rocks in Fire and Flight, Jari is a dyed-in-the-wool Sun Villager, a timid farmer who scorns to eat meat and still avoids the wolf caves around dusk. Lifemated to Alekah for many years before her sudden Recognition to Grayling, he took the sudden transition rather hard. Jari did his best to steer his stepson Fennec towards a career in agriculture, but it was clear from the start that Fennec was all Grayling's son.

In Oasis, Jari continued the life he had known in Sorrow's End - farming the soil and tending to the zwoots. Of average height for a Sun Villager, Jari has dark auburn hair that he wears down over his shoulders and gentle brown eyes. He prefers to remain in the background at council meetings and his voice is seldom heard except in matters of dire urgency.

While Newstar's canon lifemate Lutei was finally shown in The Searcher and the Sword, and named in Final Quest, Teru, his Alternaverse equivalent, has been around in 2001. He's based on a background Sun Villager seen in The Cry from Beyond, just as Rayek lands the Palace in Sorrow's End.

Teru was a farmer by trade, like most of the Sun Folk, but doing a lot of hard labour - moving rocks and the like - have given him a most un-Sun Folk build. He Recognized Newstar when she was just eight-and-seven, during the Siege at Blue Mountain cycle, and moved with her to the New Land, where their son Kimo was born. There he helps tend to the Grandfather Tree at the Great Holt, as well as growing and harvesting the plants Newstar needs to keep the Wolfriders in cotton and linen.

Teru always had difficulty understanding why his son Kimo preferred to keep his wolfblood and remain mortal. But his love for his son is such that he accepted his choice, even if he did not agree with it. Kimo's final years were hard on Teru, and while he does not like to talk about it, many elves in the Great Holt suspect grief is the reason why Teru and Newstar have never tried to have another child.

Original Quest Era and the Fall of Sorrow's End

When Ahnshen and Vurdah Recognized in Rainsong's Quest, they both looked forward to sweet little kitling to call their own. They got far more than they bargained for...

His real name is Saen, but no one except his close family ever calls him by it. A daring hunter from an early age, Coppersky invited comparisons to a young Rayek. Dressed in leathers, riding a jackwolf, Coppersky always looked more Wolfrider than Sun Folk - but don't be fooled - he scorns raw meat, and considers the Wolfrider "Way" utterly beneath his dignity.

Coppersky joined his cousin Ember in forming the Wild Hunt, and soon crossed paths with Sust. Just what the two share beyond a love of roast boar and a sizzling sexual chemistry remains a mystery to even their closest kin, but Copperky is utterly devoted to his loud and uncouth lifemate. He soon became as adept a rider of tuftcats as he was of wolves.

Coppersky returned to his home of Sorrow's End in time to witness its fall to invading humans, and helped shepherd the Sun Folk through the transition to their new home at Oasis. All grace and haughty pride, Coppersky soon became one of Haken's favored disciples. With their tuftcats, Coppersky and Sust founded a second pack of hunters, called the Pride, and as time passed, the Pride began to compete with the Jackwolf Riders for precendence as the premier hunters of Oasis.

Final Quest Era

As one of Haken's most devoted followers, Coppersky was among the first to declare his support for Haken's plan to go to Homestead. He is now a member of the ruling council of Haven - but he still takes every opportunity to join Coppersky and the Pride on their regular hunts.

Klipspringer
The first child born at Oasis, Door and Spar's firstborn arrived barely three months after the flight from Sorrow's End. Adored by everyone, Klipspringer could have grown up to be as insufferable as Coppersky, but under his mother's and Grayling's careful tutelage, he grew into an attentive and gallant elf. His father instilled in him a sense of pride in his Glider heritage, but Klipspringer thinks of heir to a new tribe, neither Sun Folk nor Glider. Klipspringer has always had a special bond with his father Door and his "grandfather" Haken, thus when the Oasis nation fractured, his choice was clear. He went to Homestead to begin a new life with his childhood friend and lifemate Cholla.

He is tall for a Wolfrider or Sun Folk, and is almost as tall as his father, Door. He has Spar's auburn hair and skin tanned a soft brown from many years spent climbing in the rocks. His golden-brown eyes come from his grandmother Nightfall.

Pool
Leetah had always resisted declaring herself lifemated to either Scouter or Shushen during their five centuries together, cherishing her independence. After Shushen's death at Sorrow's End, however, Leetah and Scouter became closer in their mourning, and three years after the founding of Oasis, they Recognized. Pool was born two years later. Like the original canon-Pool, the Alternaverse Pool was a "tail-puller" as a child, and often got into many fights with his agemates, especially Cholla. Pool always had a "magic feeling", but when Pool's healing powers emerged in early-adulthood, he found he could sense the pain of creatures around him. Pool refused to kill for his food, and eventually gave up eating any animal flesh. This and many other differences of philosophy led to a deep rift between him and Scouter.

Pool's destiny changed forever when he lost his lifemate Ruffel in childbirth. From the start, he blamed his infant daughter Melati for Ruffel's death, and in his grief, he abandoned her to be raised by others. His only attempt to reconnect with his adolescent daughter was marred by the death of her soulbrother Yosha, and Scouter cursed Melati for a death-giver. This trauma signaled the beginning of Pool's long mental and psychic decline.

At nearly ten thousand years old, Pool's Wolfrider body had finally reached its limit. He had kept himself alive through long wrapsleeps and his own healing powers, but after being awakened after the Reappearance of the Palace, he tried to prepare for death. Meeting his daughter again, and learning that she had resurrected Yosha - turning him into the shapechanged elf Beast - further traumatized Pool, and he fled for the forest of the ancestral Wolfriders, hoping to find some peace before his end. Unfortunately for the entire World of Two Moons, the peace he found was in union with the spirits of the malignant Evertree. Pool sacrificed his body and merged with the Tree, becoming the dominant voice in its spirit pool. The Tree was now possessed by a fervent desire to expand and consume the world. The Green War had begun. 

Pool had cursed Melati's unborn child, prophesying it as a bringer of death. He was right; in the final hours of the Green War, Melati and her daughter Naga set the Tree on fire. Pool tried to escape in a wooden body, but Naga caught him and burned him to ash. 

Pool's troubled spirit sleeps at last, carefully guarded by the spirits of Aurek and Yurek. 

Alternaverse Pool looks almost exactly like canon-Pool, but with darker skin inherited from his new mother Leetah. In later life, Pool grew facefur reminiscent of Strongbow's. Pool has the wolf-blood, although it is much diluted. He lived to be nearly ten thousand, although many years were spent in wrapstuff, so that his final biological age was closer to eight thousand - still more than double the usual Wolfrider life expectancy.  

Cholla
Not all the children of Oasis were born of Recognition. Rayek's baby half-sister, Cholla was born to Ekuar and Jarrah a year after Pool's arrival in Oasis. Originally named Taimi, she changed her name to Cholla (pronounced cho-ya), after Rayek compared her to the cholla cactus - fuzzy and innocent-looking from a distance, but actually full of sharp spines. Cholla has a weak heart and frail health, which many attribute to her being born out of Recognition. Leetah and Pool have been unable to strengthen Cholla's health, and she must avoid any strenuous exercise. Cholla helps her parents tend their field of crops, and is a dedicated potter. While she seems at first to bear no resemblance to her older brother Rayek, she has his stubborn streak, and his temper if she's crossed. She also shares his skill in telepathy, and Rayek was able to teach her how to paralyze with her gaze. As children Cholla and Pool fought constantly, but then become close friends. It broke Cholla's heart to see Pool choose the path of grief and madness in his later life.

Cholla never got over her childhood infatuation with Klipspringer, and the two became lifemates when they were both still quite young. Though they hoped for a child, Cholla's poor health meant that forcing Recognition was too dangerous. Cholla found some comfort in helping raise Pool's orphaned daughter Melati, however, and it was the love Melati always felt for his foster mother that inspired her to develop her most ambitious flesh-shaping project.

Melati forced Recognition between Cholla and Klipspringer, and sure enough, the pregnancy was so hard on Cholla that she miscarried in her first year of pregnancy. But Melati had planned for this, and crafted a biological incubator called the Cradle, which was able to serve as an artificial womb to bring the infant Maize to full term. Melati would later go on to refine the Cradle's design, to grow new cloned bodies for any elf who wished.   

Cholla has white-blond hair and her mother's violet eyes. She bears little resemblance to her brother Rayek, except when she is angry! Many elves of remarked on their similarities in their glares.

Eyrie
Windkin and Ahdri had long hoped for Recognition, and at last their dream came true. The youngest of the five elves who made up the first generation of Oasis elves, Eyrie was born floating, and soon proved herself a full-blooded Glider. She spent her childhood around Door, Haken and Chani, and grew up with a "healthy" dose of Glider haughtiness, which her mother never quite managed to cure her of. Eyrie also inherited her father's mischievous nature, and delighted in tormented both her agemates and her minders throughout childhood and adolescence. Some goodnatured teasing between Eyrie and Fennec soon became raging sexual tension, and a rather heated lovemating. Their centuries-long relationship was briefly challenged when Fennec Recognized Meerkat, but the three elves soon learned how to share. They have been a stable three-mating ever since - although Eyrie is always willing to seek new partners. Eyrie has her mother's complexion and bronze hair and eyes, yet she also inherited freckles from her father's side of the family. Like several hunters at Oasis, she often decorates her shoulders with markings of white clay.

Wren and Skylark
150 years after the founding of Oasis, Spar gave birth to twin boys. The brothers could not have turned out more different: quiet, cerebral Wren and fiery, reckless Skylark.

Wren, the older of the twins, is the spitting image of a young Door, introspective and with a tendency to get a bit "cloud-headed." After Recognizing the Wolfrider Mink, he joined the tribe at the Evertree, and eventually succeeded his grandfather Redlance as chief. He is a little shorter than Skylark, and has his father's silver hair, and his mother's green eyes.

Skylark, on the other hand is all Spar's: a wild child and more than a bit of a dandy. He spent many centuries studiously avoiding taking on any responsibilities at Oasis, but eventually found himself appointed as ambassador to Blue Mountain. Eventually lifemating with Brightmetal's daughter Gem, Skylark dreams of one day harnessing the troll technology to create a ship that can float through the air. He is tall and lanky, having Spar's bright red hair, and eyes as silver and mischievous as Skywise's.

Meerkat
The baby of Door and Spar's brood, Meerkat was born many years after her brothers. Like her eldest brother Klipspringer, she cannot float or glide, but she is such a skilled climber in the rocks that she does not feel at all earthbound by her lack of Glider powers. Meerkat has treeshaping powers - more than Spar, but less than Redlance - and helps her mother maintain the Thorn Fields that keep humans away from Oasis. As hyperactive as her namesake, Meerkat can often be seen bounding barefoot around the hills, looking for new and interesting plants to examine and cultivate. While she Recognized Fennec and bore him a son, Foxtail, Meerkat has little interest in the hunt, and prefers the genteel life of a gardener. She maintains several gardens on terraces and even inside the mountain caves, where she raises new hybrids of different desert plants. Meerkat is the shortest of Door and Spar's children, taking strongly after her grandmother Nightfall. She has Spar's colouring with one exception - her hair changes colour over the seasons, and when she begins to grow wisps of silver among the auburn, the elves know the brief rainy season has almost arrived.