“It is not necessary for one to be human to be a master of the thaumaturgic arts.”
Hymneth the Possessed was a neander.
The partially paralyzed wizard was impotent to smash in the faces that were staring down at him or strike the pitying expressions from their countenances. Defeated, frustrated, revealed, naked, and exposed, he could only moan and howl helplessly.
“Go on; look, stare, gawk at me. My people wonder why I never appear among them unhelmeted or without armor. It’s because if they saw me like this, as I am, they would repudiate me despite all my power and no matter what threats I rained down upon them. My forebears are from the far north, from the frozen wastes that cap the roof of the world. There they huddle, miserable and cold, dying young and struggling to eke out an existence I would not bequeath to a bird. Driven there by the ‘healthy’ ones. By people like yourselves.” Unable to move more than his head, he glared defiantly up at a silently watching Ehomba.
“Only I was different. Only I devoured everything the wise ones muttered and mumbled, storing their knowledge within my heart as well as my head. I studied, and learned, and vowed to make a life different from theirs. A life of power and dominion over those who shunned and jeered the neanders.
“When I had learned enough, I found my way here, to Ehl-Larimar. The journey almost killed me, but I took the throne from the weakling who sat upon it and remade it in my own image. I extended my control to encompass all of the central coast. I could have done more, could have conquered farther to the north and south, but I did not. Power I’d wanted, and power I’d gained.