The human inhabitants of the nearby city of Kesselon rushed to their aid, and marvelled at the survivors they pulled from the waves. Black they were, their bodies as a living piece of metal, animated by a spirit of fire. They called themselves the Nathi. Their eyes glowed a soft red. Fearsomely did they glow in anger, but brightened the sky when they smiled.
Where they came from they never disclosed, choosing instead to live among the humans and work alongside them. As time passed, the Nathi married human women, and children were born.
The children were in all appearances human, except for the irises of the eyes, which were red, and sometimes glowed. The children, called "Perhaudhrim" by the Elves, possessed a strange power. They could draw upon the life-force which animated their Nathi fathers, and produce effects much like Elven magic.
Forty years passed. The children grew up and had children of their own. With every marriage of a Half-Nathi, to Nathi or Human, a Half-Nathi child was produced. With greater numbers came greater knowledge of their powers and greater pride. As the years passed, the children's resentment of the Elven domination grew.
One dark night, a band of Half-Nathi infiltrated and stole an Elven frigate anchored in the Kesselon harbor. Once in power, they made a startling discovery: they could use their own powers to activate the ship! In the next five hours before they were destroyed, they sent eight frigates to the harbor bottom, killing countless Elves in the process.
The Elves descended upon Kesselon like a devouring flame. In two days the city was burned to the ground, its inhabitants killed or scattered. The Nathi, never numerous, perished to a man in the blaze, their bodies engulfing their killers in flame as they died. As their children died, their flesh burned away, leaving behind skeletons of black metal, draped in clothing, still clutching weapons with bone-metal fingers.
Twenty-three years went by without incident. In the inland city of Caliphais, the Elven trade governor was found in his bed with his heart torn out of his chest. A charred and smoking handprint on his face was the only trace of the murderer. Over the next three months, high-ranking Elves suffered the same fate all over Karanath. One victim was found with the words "The Nathi Live" etched in perfect script in the charred flesh of his stomach.
This time, the Elves sent an entire fleet. Their first ships never made it into the Kesselon harbor, but were burned out of the water before they could fire a shot or raise a flag. The next ships took no chances, but fired bolts of lightning at the city and the opposing ships from far away. It took three days this time, but Kesselon burned again, as did the coastal cities of Holden, Origil, and Domen, which tried with less success to withstand the bombardment. The Elves moved into these cities after the attacks,and rebuilt them as fortresses, sending patrols out far and wide, magically enslaving and sterilizing all those of Nathi descent they found. These they sent into slavery throughout Tolhoth Amlug.
Over the next five years, the Elves spread their dominance farther and farther inland. until they reached Matraca, where the Emba river cascades down six hundred feet off the eastern highlands. From the walls of Matraca, a man stood on the battlements shouting defiance.
"Here now, you Elves! You have destroyed our fathers, and hounded us across our lands! It shall stop here; I, Turekk, declare it! We are Nathi, and we shall drive you into the sea!"
The gates rumbled open and a force of thousands poured out, every last one of them of Nathi descent. The two thousand Elves were hacked down and driven into the sea that day, only a remnant surviving to carry the message to their people.
Turekk and his Nathi army swept across Karanath, driving the Elves before them. First Origil fell, then Domen, then Holden, and then Kesselon. Of the Elven strongholds, only Angdain and Ethir remained to them.
The Nathi held the two cities besieged for five years. Turekk was killed by a stone flung from Ethir's battlements. His son, Kor, took command, and gave the order to withdraw.
War with the Elves never wholly ceased for the next sixty years. Kor was slain in battle the year afterwards, and then his brother Khessed, while finally taking Ethir and ending its stranglehold over the river Emba. The Elves were rooted out of all of Karanath, save for Angdain, where they remain to this day. Battle still intermittently flares across the Elefast Peninsula.
Thus have matters remained for five hundred years. The Nathi have consolidated and begun to make secure their holdings, and a rich civilization has developed. This civilization shall be described later.
The proto-Nathi (the all-metal race, as opposed to the Nathi, the present human-appearing race) were inhabited by a sort of communal life-force which allowed the metal body to become animated.
The metal in question is called 'Galvorn', btw. It is a direct Tolkien reference. this is also the metal which composes the Nathis' skeleton. No idea how they get enough of it in their diet to form their bones as they grow. It's Mystical. Trust me. Mystical and Ineffable.
Anyway, the Nathi, even though the proto-nathi are apparently no longer around, can access this life-force as well, to perform acts which strongly resemble what is "Magic" to everyone else. Accessing the life-force causes their irises which are red, to glow.
A Nathi can also perceive other Nathi nearby, especially if they both are using the Power at the same time. This is somewhat akin to the gravity-well example: two balls being placed on a rubber sheet. An observer on one ball can tell generally how heavy and where another ball is on the sheet by how the sheet stretches around him. The same way, one Nathi can tell where and how powerful another nearby Nathi is, by sensing the perturbations in the Life-force.
When a Nathi uses the Power, observers see a suggestion of a malevolent red haze coloring their perception of what the Nathi is doing.
Examples of what a Nathi could do with the Power:
Crystal: Silma is best. Power channeled through crystal artifacts is the intellectial equivalent to a living static electricity charge. This is the effect that allows the Nathi to power the Elven lightning-crystals and frigates.
To make a crystal magical artifact, a Nathi artisan takes a peice of silma, and with the power, makes it "live." By application of the power, feeding his thoughts and intents into the crystal, he grows it and fashions it to have the shape and powers it will eventually have. The character of the artisan profoundly affects the magical items he makes.
The life of a crystal artifact is not necessarily life, it is instead that force which allows it to hold its shape and properties. A skilled artisan can reawaken a crystal artifact and change its properties.
As the Nathi lifeforce is what gives a Nathi his power, most of the enchantments worked on crystal involve life of some sort. Healing or warding medallions are fairly common, though not really very effetive. More common are traps; daggers, swords, or most often rings. These can be used to trap people, body and soul, inside the artifact, where they will experience a virtual environment, which the artifact's owner may control, and enter when asleep. Many high-ranking Nathi wear rings containing captured enemies, as status symbols.
This sort of capture is the highest form of blasphemy to an Elf, for it removes the Elf's Katra from circulation.
While competition is the watchword in public, home life is much more relaxed. To say "Be at home" to a Nathi is to declare that for the moment, you do not wish to compete with him. To tell a Nathi to "Go Home!" is a deadly affront.
Artifacts made from the bones of dead Nathi are very common, considering how many Nathi live and die all around each day. However, only a few have such great stature and/or power.
When the Elves took the First Nathi slaves, they planted a psychic hook in their minds, the same as they would do with human slaves, thus allowing an Elf to cause intense pain to a disobedient human or Nathi, as well as allowing him the ability to place minor compulsions.
Because this hook did not prevent the Nathi slave from using the Power, many slaves escaped in spite of their captors. To combat this, and Elf named Elraineth developed something better. At birth, each Nathi slave had a semi-sentient chain placed on each wrist. These chains would wrap themselves around the wrists, and could not be removed until the Nathi's death. These chains would uncoil at an Elf's command, and either tie the Nathi's wrists togather, or coil around a post, or whatever the Elf wanted, thus immobilizing the Nathi. Each chain has its own personality and name; some are cranky, some can be appeased by petting or cajoling, etc. The presence of the chains also prevent the Nathi slave from using the Power in any way. Therefore, slaves are as a rule very ignorant of what their free cousins in Karenath are capable of, having never had any opportunity to learn.
Nathi slaves have developed a peculiar mythology. Because they were among the first generations of Nathi ever, the slaves take particular pride in being able to trace their lineage back to the "Old Race," that is, the Proto-Nathi.
The slaves also have come to refer to the Proto-Nathi, and the Silmn (the Silmn are described elsewhere in myth; they are the crystalline counterpart to the metallic Proto-Nathi) as "Elementals." Nobody in living memory has ever seen one, at least, not on non-Elven living memory, and the Elves aren't telling.