When I was in college, lo those many years ago, I collected comics.  For a long time I'd see this one comic, an independant called ElfQuest.   I thought about buying it, but it just looked too cutesy.  Then oneday I met the inestimable Maggie, who corrupted me and forced me to read a couple of issues, and that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. 

EQ was my first real fandom.  Sure, I loved Star Trek and Doctor Who, and I'd even started some fairly dreadful and luckily aborted fanfic for each.  But something about ElfQuest spoke to me, and I started writing in earnest.  A lot of it was the fact that in EQ fandom in those days, it was considered bad form to write the series characters.   The writers of the comic encouraged fans to create their own characters and tribes, and we did--ten thousand years of history, hundreds of characters, dozens of tribes.  I've always been a world-builder, and I ate it up, along the way learning a lot about writing. Over the years I was a member of several EQ fan clubs, or holts, as we called ourselves.  Those were the days of printed fanzines, and the Internet was barely a gleam in Al Gore's eye. I wrote, illustrated, and sometimes published for several holts-- Daystar,Tower Mountain, Great Water, Plains Hunters.  Tower Mountain was probably my favorite, and certainly the one I did the most work for. 

When I first joined Tower Mountain, I was told "Imagine Blue Mountain with Winnowill instead of Voll in charge." It was going to be something different: most holts were patterned after the Wolfriders, the primitive hunter-gatherers who were the main characters in the comic.  We were going to be patterned after the more advanced tribe of elves with whom the Wolfriders clashed, who rode giant hawks and were worshipped by a tribe of humans. 

Rahirah was my main elf character in Tower Mountain, and she was originally created to be a sort of Aroree type-- a hawkrider who Saw The Light and joined the virtuous Outsiders in rebelling against Lord Tyaar's evil rule and leaving the stagnant society of Tower Mountain behind for greener pastures. Well... it kind of worked out that way.  Rahirah did eventually rebel against Lord Tyaar,  and she eventually did leave theTower for a new life elsewhere.  But none of it happened exactly the way I'd planned, 'cause Tower Mountain quickly developed far beyond its initial role as the Villains of the piece, and Rahirah, I soon discovered, has a mind of her own.

These stories are in chronological order, and take Rahirah from age eight to almost two thousand, from Tower Mountain to New Hope, and from puppy love to a long-standing lifemating.  One of the things I've enjoyed most about writing these stories is the chance to explore what happens after happily ever after. And along the way I've played around witha bunch of other stuff.

Although I'm no longer an active member of Tower Mountain, I'm still very fond of Rahirah. Unfortunately at this point the chances that I'll ever complete the unfinished stories is virtually nil...but if you're really curious, ask--I'll tell you how they come out. If you're interested in the original comic or in reading more works set in the Tower Mountain/New Hope universe, check out the links.

  Barb