Aerin

If you had held your children in your arms as they begged for death, for the flames of the human onslaught burned their skin and crippled their wings, you would not trust a human until the end of the world and your wits.

~Mavunda the Aerin, God-King, Final Sovereign     The Aerin are an Aimanen race akin to humans in appearance and origin. They are characterized by their great wings and their tall stature, and most nostably the white light that flows through their veins and energizes their bodies. The Aerin, after being conceived by Gilmithiën from a great human king (Draeken king Morzul in some tales), grew to be the dominant race of Aimane, constructing great citadels and mythic shrines. After mankind arrived in Aimane, the Aerin enthralled most humans ere the humans organized the tribes into kingdoms and revolted after the death of the human Draeken queen Esmarrok. This culminated in the Aerin wars, during which most of the species was exterminated. The defeated and decimated Aerin race retreated to the dark corners of the world, and the last of the durable creatures remained there for three thousand years as they passed out of the annals of human history and faded into myth. After centuries of living from naught but what they could scratch of the rocks, one Aerin united the Aerin of the Gundushad mountains three hundred years prior to the , who had grown disparate and enstranged. And this Aerin, Mavunda they named him, strode through the Kodar forest and reignited the Aerin foundries that were there even before the forest grew there. And he descended into the pits of the Kodar and delved through the tunnels of Eron, where he came upon the Nomguls, and he enthralled them as he became their god, and the Nomguls forsook the simple worship of Gilmithiën they clinged to long ago.
The Aerin grew in strength and numbers, and some could even say they prospered despite still clinging to dark hollows in the mountains. They enslaved some of the desert dwellers of Derendor, who under threat, bribe or trick were made to follow the bidding of the Aerin, though the Aerin did not reveal themselves to them, only reigning and steering through the arms and tongues of the Nomguls. And as they gained influence in and knowledge of the northern regions of Derendor and the Kodar forest in this fashion, Mavunda broke into the tower of the king and abducted his kin, and forced the king thus to swear fealty to Mavunda, until the very end of the coming storm, if he would have his lineage returned. For the storm then came, when Derendor bred an army of Nomguls, invaded Mittrellion, fought at the battle of the Elkhorn plain, retreated, achieved victory at Kamon-Raa and conquered nigh all of Aimane. Mavunda's victory had been complete, if not for the intervention of the militias of Amre the Silverbird and Daerre the white wolf.