The Everling Family

NOTE: This is an idea I just had, after talking to Vhalen at the Dev Chat. I am going to attempt to pull together all the Everling Lore I can find into a portrait of the family's history. I am especially intrigued by Vhalen's comment that "The family trade may be returning to Norrath."

This page will take a genealogical approach, detailing a history of the Everlings, the members of the family, and close associates.

The Everling Saga will attempt to tell the story in a linear fashion, through the eyes of a single adventurer who has seen it all.

Contents [hide]

Before EverQuest II
Nektropos Castle
The Family

eq2 mob:Rikantus Everling
Alana Everling
eq2 mob:Theeral the nomad
eq2 mob:Maltus Everling
eq2 mob:Ollix Everling
The Six Daughters of Rikantus and Theeral
Theeral Everling
eq2 mob:Alexa

Servants

eq2 mob:Pelleas
eq2 mob:Maid Maltena

See also
References

Before EverQuest II

Rikantus Everling was born and raised in Freeport, where he ran a curios shop left to him by his father. The shop was in one of the poorer sections of town, but was well known to the rich and affluent for a reputation of acquiring unusual and unique trinkets found nowhere else.^[1]

Rikantus met and wed his beloved, Alana, and they had two sons; Maltus and Ollix. We know that the sons grew to manhood there (because Ollix had a daughter, Alexa) but we do not know how old they were when they both died. An endemic of madness had afflicted Freeport, and Maltus and Ollix were both overcome by it. Rikantus had locked them up within his home for their own protection but Plimptos, a servant that had served Alana since her childhood, betrayed the family and released the brothers. Separately they both came to harm on the mean streets of Freeport and died. Rikantus could not prove Plimptos had freed the brothers, but thereafter he called him pelleas, which means whelp.^[2] His beloved Alana died shortly after, of a broken heart, and all three were buried in the Everling family mausoleum in Freeport.

Rikantus became convinced that his family was under a curse, received surely from some of the cursed objects that were his stock in trade, and poured himself into the effort to identify and break the curse. During his travels around this time he developed a relationship with The Ebon Mask, the assassins guild of Neriak. Through this association he was able to secure permission and help to build a castle in the deep recesses of Nektulos Forest which was called Nektropos Castle. It's walls were built of a magically-imbued black stone shaped by Teir'Dal masons, and the very plans for the castle were taken from a mysterious Flesh Bound Tome. In this way Rikantus hoped to build a fortress that would both protect his family from the curse, as well as protect the world from his hoard of cursed artifacts. When it was ready he even moved the remains of his family to the new crypts deep beneath the castle.^[3]

During this time, Rikantus met and married a gypsy fortune teller named Theeral. They were to have six daughters and, despite his melancholy forays down to the crypt to visit his sons and his beloved Alana, they were moderately happy, but as his daughters grew to womanhood they became exceedingly willful and convinced their father to send away the family guardians he had created to protect them.^[4]

In a single night of terror, the guardians returned and slaughtered the daughters. Rikantus again blamed Pelleas and this time he took terrible action, sealing the hapless servant into his chamber alive.

Afterwards, Rikantus determined to find a way to travel to Ethernere itself and retrieve the souls of his daughters. To this end he studied with another seeker of dark magic, Varsoon. Together they unlocked many of the secrets of the runes of Sunder and Ethernere, but Varsoon ultimately betrayed Everling, withholding vital information and, unprepared for what would happen when he opened the gate to Ethernere, Rikanus' soul was Sundered, ripped into three parts. Two of these parts reside yet in the world of Norrath, while the third remains a prisoner in Ethernere.^[5]

Nektropos Castle

Ancestral home of the Everling clan, this imposing edifice stands in a valley in the extreme northeast of Nektulos Forest.

The fortress was built by Lord Rikantus Everling, with the help of Neriak and The Ebon Mask, and using designs from a Flesh Bound Tome. The architect was Lord Pazin Punox. The castle is built of bricks carved of black rock from the shores of the Black Sun Sea deep in the Underfoot, shaped by torture and dark planar magic.^[6]

The Family

Rikantus Everling

As of the beginning of EverQuest II, Rikantus is a man divided... literally. His soul is split into three parts, two of which have physical bodies on Norrath. Rikantus is a hermit living at the Evernight Cemetary in Antonica, and Antiquitor Kantus Mor'Tael is a merchant in Maj'Dul. After completing Nektropos Castle: Tribulation (aka Nek 3), if you go speak to Kantus he will channel the third part, which is the dominant personality, Rikantus Everling. He tells you to find "the Seeker", but to date no one seems to know who "the Seeker" is. I suspect that he is Seeker Abdeef but he would not talk to me, except to urge me to complete the Peacock Club Quest Series, which I have not yet done. Perhaps if I did Abdeef would have a new quest series for me?

Theeral the Nomad is the 2nd wife of Rikantus Everling, and the mother of his slain daughters. It is she that gives you the quest, A Calling in the Forest, which was originally the access quest to Nektropos Castle.

Once, but just when I cannot say, Rikantus made a journey to find a cursed item like no other, an item his father had sought. His journey led him to the forsaken city of Zebuxor. There, while looking for fame, he instead found faith and became a devotee of Ullkorruuk, the Lady of Betrayal. It is her shrine that is found in the chapel of Nektropos Castle.^[7]

Tony "Vhalen" Garcia had the following to say in an interview at Warcry when asked about the Everling storyline:

The origins of the castle have long been laid out, but it is not until the Age of Destiny that the true story of the castle is beginning to unfold. Lord Rikantus Everling has had dealings in his past that brought curses upon his family line. Dealing with these curses became his priority and also led to some forbidden alliances. From one of these evil alliances came the safe haven of Nektropos Castle, a place of isolation, research and containment. If only we could step back into time, through the Chronoscape, and visit the castle as it stood back then. It was not the structure we see today ... twisted in so many ways.^[8]

Alana Everling

First wife of Rikantus, mother of Maltus and Ollix. She died of a broken heart, Firstchill 3145, following the deaths of Maltus and Ollix.^[9]

Theeral the nomad

Theeral was the second wife of Rikantus. She was a fortune teller when they met.

Maltus Everling

First-born son of Rikantus and Alana. Maltus had a daughter, Alexa. The name of his wife is not known.

Maltus and Ollix both died about the same time^[10] of a madness that came upon them while the family yet lived in Freeport, and were interred in the Everling mausoleum there, joined soon after by their mother, Alana.^[11]

The Maltus we kill at the end of Nektropos Castle must be the distant descendant whose quest to find and claim the castle of his ancestors is related in the pages of the Flesh Bound Tome. He may even have been possessed by the spirit of the original Maltus.

Ollix Everling

Second son of Rikantus and Alana, brother of Maltus.

The Six Daughters of Rikantus and Theeral

Sheila, Dierdre, Crysta, Elise, Jenni and Melanie

The daughters were all slain by the family guardians, through some unstated treachery of Pelleas^[12]

Theeral Everling

Second wife of Rikantus, and mother of his daughters.

Alexa

Daughter of Maltus Everling, Alexa is the ghost that gives you the quest, The Everling Lockets. She is possessed by the evil spirit of her mad uncle, Ollix Everling.

Servants

Pelleas

His original name was Plimptos, and he was Alana's servant, a mere child at the time, when Rikantus and Alana wed. Rikantus believed that Plimptos was the one that untied and released Maltus and Ollix to wander the city and, in their madness, meet their separate sorry ends. For this crime Rikantus renamed him Pelleas, which means "whelp".

It is possible, though never made clear, that it was Pelleas that corrupted the family guardians which resulted in the murders of the 6 daughters of the second marriage. Perhaps he did it out of some sense of loyalty to his late mistress, the first Lady Everling. Whether it is true or not, Rikantus apparently sealed Pelleas in his room to starve to death.