A well meaning friend, after reading my fourth novel, gently pointed out to me that the plots in all four were identical: a fairy prince falls in love with a mortal girl and chaos ensues.

I hotly protested. And I realized my friend was right. And protested anyway. And thereupon sat down and decided to fix it...

The Elloi are the first race I've actually invented. They are, in essence, fairies. The kind of fairies you see in those pictures, with transparent wings? Yeah, those. They have transparent wings, which somehow contain their magic.

The lived on their own for many, many years in peace, for they were immortal. No mortals came to disturb them for no one could cross the mountains. Eventually, however, an exiled prince and his companions get lost in the northern sea and end up in Elleys, which translates to the Blessed Lands; and stay; much to the dismay of the Queen. When the Queen marries the mortal prince there is a war, and part of the Elloi leave the kingdom and hide in the mountains. The rest stay and mingle with the mortals, gradually forming one race.

The magic of the Elloi didn't mix well with the inherent evil in the mortals and a race of wizards came into power, battling for absolute supremacy against each other and using the commoners to achieve it. A common farm boy wakes up one morning and leads the people in revolt against the wizards, and to their surprise the last of the pure blooded Elloi came down out of their mountains to help.

Tell, (for so the boy was called,) succeeded in vanquishing and taming the power of the wizards and set up a new kingdom. With the help of the wizards and the Elloi he wrote his law into the land itself, so that it could not be broken. He bound the power of the Elloi so that it could not be misused. He forbade the practice of Dark Magic within th precincts of Elleys, and forbade a wizard to rule.

Thus the Elloi became very similar to the race of mortals. Fairer, and accustomed to living in peace they had the blessing of their wizards who could cast spells and see the future. And every child was born with a special gift, the last vestment of the original magic that every winged being once had in full power. For some it is shape-shifting, for some it is second sight, it varies. Few have the same gift in the same way. The gifts are both a blessing and a curse to them.

Through the folly of one powerful prince the door was opened into Elleys over the mountains to the mortals. They came first out of friendship, then as an army, and finally as enemies. the Blessed lands were torn apart as Tell's law fell into pieces under the bloodshed, until, sick of the fighting, a mortal queen and the heir to the rule of the Elloi make an alliance and marry. No dissenting parties could stand against their allegiance and the fighting ceased. The thin blood of the Elloi is further diluted as the mortals mix with them freely until the great kingdom of Elleys fades into the mists of the past.

That was amazing to read! How does this play into your story? Is it essentially your story?

Is Elleys truly gone, or just hidden or forgotten? And are there children still born with gifts?

That is a well thought out history. I agree in the hope that there are still some pure blood Elloi out there...

@Shawn: it's the history behind my story. Conrad is the first book, (the mortals who first discover Elleys,) Tell is the second, (actually part of the first book, there's only three) Janin is the third, (he's kind of an interlude story, but his decisions are what bring about the fall, this is Prince of Yen one of my WIPs, my Masterpiece as Phili dubbed it, and the first book to be written,) Ian is the fourth, and that tells the story of the fall and destruction.

@Jonathan: Yep, it's gone. The theory was to do a kind of Narnia style world, where people wonder if it actually once existed (even though it's fiction and they know it didn't.) One of those stories where it's so completely gone there's no way to prove it didn't actually exist... don't know if I can write that well or not.

@Riniel: Nope. The concept of children still born with gifts is one I leave to the readers to wish for. The story ends with the marriage proposal of the mortal prince to the princess who is the heir to the last vestige of Elleys.

I am definitely hereby a fan of the Elloi and of their story. Only question, why did you choose to make the pure Elloi such a fanciful race? I honestly don't mean any offense or to put down your idea, but why are they fairies with wings rather than say, elves where the only distinction is perhaps pointy ears? I like the way you did it, in spite of my Tolkien-bred instincts. In fact, I like having the Elloi as such a race, it just rubs on my Tolkien instincts I guess.

Well, the story concept predates my knowledge of Tolkien. I was reading lots and lots of Andrew Lang at the time. The race were originally fairies, and so I left them the same and just changed their name. Now I'm keeping them that way for originality, since everyone else has elves. It's a fanciful tale, really, I include a lot of stereotypical fairytale elements. (Prince of Yen, for example, includes three tests, a glass mountain, an impossibly beautiful princess, etc.) So they seem to fit that way.

A dilemma has arisen, however. My scifi inclined sister pointed out that the word Elloi is already used in H.G.Wells "Time Machine." The name comes from the country name "Elleys". (Another example of me doing this is the inhabitants of the planet Talek are the Talekai.) Can I get away with it? Should I change it? Change it to what?

No, I wouldn't change it Katie. You could pull it off, I'm sure of it. The whole Zirg thing needed to be changed, but I think you could pull this one off. "Time Machine" is no longer a very popular novel. Most people have never read it, at least, that is my experience. Those of us who have in their worldview studies, didn't even remember that was a name in the book. Once you said something I could link the two, but had I just read it, it still wouldn't have clicked. I'd say go for it. Make the name popular

I agree with Airianna, don't change. The name is cool, and I had never heard of Time Machine before anyway. Tolkien stole just about every dwarf name in The Hobbit from ancient Germanic tales, and people don't go that ballistical about it. I say keep it and make it your own.

Same here, Jaynin.

All right then, I'll leave it.

These guys are awesome! If the Elloi were so powerful, how come they couldn't ever drive out the invaders? Did the surviving wizards help Tell? Because it says that they helped him bind the land.

Which invaders which time?

Tell defeated them, and then they agreed to help him. Every king was allowed wizards as advisors, but no wizard could rule. And the land-law prevented any such power as Tell had had to fight against.

Any of the invaders, like even the wizards. If the wizards were only half-Elloi, why couldn't the Elloi beat them without Tell's help?