The Gliders were a small tribe of High-Ones’ firstborn. In an attempt to protect themselves from the vicious world outside, they sequestered themselves within the labyrinthine caverns of Blue Mountain. Over centuries, they recreated the appearance in exquisite detail of their ancestral home, the Palace of the High Ones … but with their unending seclusion came stagnation.

Their nominal ruler, Lord Voll, exiled himself in a shroud of melancholic memories; his once-lovemate, the cruel and sinister Winnowill, assumed total control of her people, using their powers to attempt to create a new palace in the form of a great stone egg. Her ultimate goal was to erase all past mistakes — especially the cross-bred, “impure” Wolfriders — so all pure elves could return to the stars. Her twisted dreams ended in the collapse of Blue Mountain, in which most of the Gliders died.