Hleemeentreezee (hliːmɛntriːziː)
The Hleemeentreezee are a race of horse-headed bipeds with sharp teeth and hoofed feet. They inhabit several of the Rasrathnii Islands, and are inimical to most other races. They hold all other races in utter contempt, considering them to be brutish and despicable, and consider the extermination of lesser beings as their personal mission in the world.
No one is exactly sure where the Hleemeentreezee came from. Several hundred years ago they emerged on the island of Maleth, seemingly out of nowhere. They drove the existing population of Cyclops out of Maleth and Gauzo, and have held them ever since. Their numbers are not large, and nobody reports any sign that they have increased since they took over the islands - they appear to not breed or die of old age.
The Hleemeentreezee worship an entity that they call the Hleeheeha, which translates to "The Long Cold Dark". They will invoke this god when they slaughter other creatures, and it is important to them that their victims die with their god's name as their last words. Nearly all the communication anyone has ever had with one of the Hleemeentreezee has been instructions to repeat the name of Hleeheeha before dying, and they are more than willing to torture to achieve this aim.
The Hleemeentreezee do not speak any language other than their own, but have a creature that they use for speaking to other races when necessary. This animal is called a Nyaahuu, and resembles a bald monkey with no legs or tail, and only one arm that it uses to feed itself and drag its body around. It has the ability to relay messages from the Hleemeentreezee into any language, but it does display any intelligence of its own.
The Hleemeentreezee do not use tools in the same way as other races, but instead craft creatures to do whatever they need done. The Nyaahuu is one example of this methodology, while their skin-boats (or yhahaa) are another. Yhahaa are living creatures, similar to small whales, whose skeletons curve upward to create a place where the Hleemeentreezee can ride. From a distance, they resemble skins stretched on a wooden frame, but up close it is obvious that the boats are alive. They are seen rarely outside the vicinity of the Rasrathnii Islands, as the Hleemeentreezee rarely travel to other lands. They are most often spotted by ships passing by the archipelago, or when the Hleemeentreezee decide to take a ship and its crew captive. This happens a few times a decade, and those who are taken by the Hleemeentreezee are never heard from again.
In a worrying recent development, the Hleemeentreezee have formed some sort of alliance with the Empire of Vlast, and an ambassador has joined the court of the Kar. Observers believe that this alliance will put magical power behind the Kar's ambition to recreate the ancient empire of Muria with the Pozoj ruling over all.
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