NAME: Vanjir (VAN-jeer)
GENDER: male
GENERATI-ON/AGE: 4th/Born TWR 1210
DECLARED?: No
HAIR: silvery-grey, wavy with slight tendency to curl on ends, shoulder length, extremely thick, bangs
EYES: gold
SKIN: lightly tanned
VOICE: baritone (casual speech patterns, uses slang at times)
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: strong bone structure, jaw and chin; well defined musculature with broad chest and obviously smaller waist/hips; full lips, cleft chin.  Definite resemblance to his father but eyes are narrower and he's more lightly built.

PARENTS: Vaynyar, Meiji
SIBLINGS: Tathlyn, sister
OTHER RELATIVES: Grandparents: Havrin, Wya (D), Taywar (D), Reevirah
Aunts: Rahirah, Chenir
Great Aunt: Jinan
Cousins: Frodis, Peritha, Cheyvah, Kyeer, Shahn(D), Spannie, Kerei
CURRENT MATE: Open
RECOGNIZED(?): No
PREVIOUS MATES: Eden, probably others
CHILDREN: none

TALENT: exceptionally strong glider/levitator; average sending
SKILLS: brewer, hawkrider (and attendant skills)
HOBBIES: horseback riding, exploration
BONDBEAST: Shatterstar (male hawk).  Rides Rotgut (dark grey stallion) but is not bonded to him.
WEAPONS: Preferred all-purpose weapon: throwing blades  Combat weapons: staff, sword.  Hunting weapons: short bow.  Also being trained in a variety of other weapons, but these are the ones he has shown an aptitude for.
JEWELRY: None while on duty. When off likes jewelry made of leather, black steel, gold, onyx, black diamond (once available), snowflake obsidian, yellow topaz
CLOTHING: Likes hats, buckskin breeches, tank tops, pullover tops with cowls
Favored colors: black, blues, browns (gold-browns, cognac, rust, bronze, etc.)

PERSONALITY/HISTORY/etc.: Vanjir was raised by Ban and Meiji in a close family atmosphere, and while he recognizes Vaynyar as his sire, Ban is considered his father.  His attitude towards Vaynyar ranges from indifference to resentment, through wary respect of his intelligence, depending on the circumstances.  If he notices that another elf reacts badly to his physical resemblance to Vaynyar, (as Doleera does, for example) he'll play it up if he thinks it will make his target angry or flustered enough to get him what he wants.  He finds this amusing.
     Tried very hard to stay out of the emotional tangles surrounding Ban and Meiji's breakup, and loves both of them equally, but can and does take offense at the ever-so-polite insults some of Ban's friends direct at his mother afterwards.  Tends to be casually loyal to those he considers family (namely Havrin, Wyn, Chenir, Wildwings, Ji, Jinan, Reevirah, Rahirah and her children; also Erik and Jilleen as Ban's family) and is unhappy when those loyalties clash with each other.  Was rather glad to leave the whole mess behind when he moved to New Hope.
     Vanjir tends to be independent in both thought and deed, and is seldom susceptible to peer pressure. He is aggressive, always willing to take a dare or go adventuring.  He's not impulsive, though, tending to look before he leaps and automatically considering the consequences of his actions in regards to others.
     He has been well-schooled in the social graces until proper etiquette is second nature. However he prefers to be physically and/or mentally active.  Concerts bore him silly, as do art tours, though at least with the latter he can walk around.  He'd rather attend dance and theatre
productions, though even these he frequently attends only to fulfill social obligations. His real preference is for parties, balls and gaming, social activities were he can take an active part.
     Outside of society he enjoys adventuring and exploring, either alone or with a like-minded buddy. He likes to ride things, anything that is big enough to carry him capable of giving him an exciting ride. He was taught to ride and care for horses by his mother at a very young age. He had a pony almost as soon as he was old enough to stay upright on one. Rides hell for leather, usually picking a very high-spirited (ungelded) mount. Also likes to ride hawks, storms, kites, waves, and boats in rough weather.
     Flirts mildly with females he likes, but is discriminating about who he sleeps with.  Feels no compulsion to join with someone purely for the experience. Vanjir enjoys anticipating the act, and prefers a good chase, to have to court and convince someone. He doesn't pursue females who are
too easily available, and doesn't like to give the impression that he is someone easily available to anyone with the right equipment.  He is fairly straightforward sexually, his one quirk being an attraction to human females.  In the Tower, where any number of willing servants are available, this was considered mildly debauched, but none of anyone else's business.  In New Hope, where one cannot dismiss one's partner at whim for getting old, it caused some serious problems.  He initiated a lovemating with Eden Risingmist, and after a great deal of argument and citing of the Pearl/Zigan precedent, eventually married her.  He did love her, but Vanjir was completely unprepared, emotionally, for the rigors of watching someone he loved grow old and die.  Much to his dismay, he found himself becoming less and less atracted to Eden as she got to her late thirties.  Eventually Eden petitioned the Risingmist elders for a divorce, which was granted; the two of them eventually became friends after several rather bitter years.  Vanjir still finds himself physically attracted to human girls, but nowdays confines the expression of this urge to his visits to the Tower, where there are no social consequences.
     Vanjir was born and raised at Tower, however when he was in his early twenties, he decided it was time he saw the world (or at least the New Hope part of it). Nalkor (who was considering the possibility of retirement some day) was impressed by Vanjir's performance in the gliders games at the Lovebringer Festival, and promptly slotted Vanjir For hawkrider training with an eye toward training him as New Hope's future flight leader.  It was eventually decided he would train both at New Hope (under Nalkor) and at Tower (under Eylar), in order to take advantage of tutelage from the best both settlements have to offer.
     Vanjir is a moderately good tactician and a very good strategist, and his skill is currently being honed by any means Nalkor and Eylar can think up, including sessions with Razmak (who probably has no idea his brains are being picked). His current training, and teachers, includes:
     Leadership Training tactical skills, subterfuge, manipulation and psychology, compliments of Ayla, Sherron Firewing, Nalkor and Eylar.
     Hawk Training and Care - from Tanyel and Rahirah
     Practical Training patrol and trade routes, equipment care, primarily from Nalkor, Eylar and Tanyel
     Survival Training hunting, gathering, food preparation, tracking, shelter, all learned mostly from Raventongue
     Hunting - tracking, killing, skinning, gutting...all that stuff, primarily from Jheredd
     Weaponry - From Mindar at Tower: Training with a variety of weapons.  If Mindar's got it, Vanjir's expected to become passably proficient. Also hand to hand combat.
     Weaponry - From Sherron Firewing at New Hope: Heavily trained on bo and sword. Also trained by Jehne on throwing blades, Vanjir's preferred weapon. Sherron also drills him on subterfuge (camouflage, faking drowning, laying and detangling false and scrambled trails, interpretive listening, etc.)

     Vanjir obviously pretty much has his days booked.  When he began hawkrider training his casual adventuring days pretty much ceased.  As of NH 75, he is living in New Hope more or less full time.  Some time between then and NH 100, Nalkor turns over the Flight Leader's job to him, far earlier than anyone expected, on the theory that Doleera knows Nalkor's thought patterns, but Vanjir is someone new and relatively mysterious.  (Indeed, Doleera's spies apparently never discover that Vanjir is the flight leader at all.)  For next several hundred years Vanjir is Flight Leader in name, though in practice Nalkor tends to double-check all his decisions.  While Vanjir finds this annoying, he's smart enough to know that he's way outclassed in terms of experience by almost everyone, and is not about to turn down good advice.
     Vanjir was not an official member of any household (though he lived in Risingmist) until his installation as Flight Leader.  He was very reluctant to take the New Hope adoption ceremony, doing it in the end because there was no way he could go on to become Flight Leader without it.  Because he has sworn, he tries to stick to his word, but he often has serious problems with New Hope's beliefs and finds many New Hope residents to be hopeless pie-in-the-sky optimists when it comes to judging the motives of others.  He's something of a pessimist when it comes to human/elven nature.
     During the Hostage Crisis, Vanjir really comes into his own, organizing a good deal of the more effective resistance to the Hidden Valley "tax collectors", arranging for people to slip in and out of New Hope unnoticed, working to subvert the more subvertable guards such as Raikan and Redblade, and generally playing Hogan to the Hidden Valley's Colonel Klink.  For him, the Hostage Crisis was, while indubitably a terrible tragedy, also a hell of a lot of fun; he enjoyed the danger and the living on the edge.  He was furious at Rael and Frodis' ill-advised practical joke, which led to Geibryl's murder.  Vanjir rode them both unmercifully about it both because he thought they'd been stupid, and because Geibryl's death brought home to him that this wasn't a game; in a sense, they spoiled his fun.  After that, things became far more serious for him, but he was no less excellent at carrying out his job.
     The return of the hostages was a triumph; the battle of New Hope immediately following even more so.  Vanjir was highly irritated at receiving messages from Raventongue, who'd been off in Taiakaar, filled with reams of military advice.  He felt, rightly, that he'd been doing a damned good job on his own, and he was also highly suspicious of the Taiakaari and their role in the Hidden Valley.  He becomes a good deal more independant in terms of his leadership after this, to the point of being brusque if anyone tries to suggest anything to him at all; eventually, it is to be hoped, he will find a happy medium.
     In the wake of the Hostage Crisis, Vanjir has done some analysis of the actions of the Taiakaari and the Hidden Valley, and come to some unpopular conclusions--namely, the possibility that the Taiakaari govenment incited or at least encouraged the Hostage Crisis as a means of putting key New Hope elves in their debt, perhaps even under their control, and increasing their chances of obtaining favorable trade terms.  At the very least, he feels, the adoration-bordering-on-worship which the Taiakaari accord Dove, Feather, and their mates has thoroughly turned their heads and made them incapable of judging things Taiakaari objectively.  He keeps these conclusions to himself for the most part, because he's canny enough to realize that the "key elves" are too politically and personally influential for him to go up against alone, (and they may not realize that they're being used, if they are) but he keeps a warier eye on New Hope's foreign relations than he used to.
     When not busting his butt for the New Hope hawkriders, Vanjir spends his time playing around with his brews. Originally apprenticed as a vintner under Kela, Valimar and Feyhr at Tower, he one day took one of their best grape wines, distilled and aged it, and has taken off on his own ever since. Vanjir is a brewer and distiller, rather than a vintner, and loves to experiment. He operates a small still, and is/will be involved in the creation of the following: ciders and nectars, beer/lagers/ales, cordials, negus, white skyfire/white skyfire with kick/rotgut, brandy/cognac/applejack, and a broad range of tea liqueurs.