Firstfolk

The Firstfolk are the original humanoid inhabitants of Eramon and the ancestor-race of most or all known sapient humanoids across the world.
They were known as pacifist hunter-gatherers possessed of a powerful preternatural empathy and memetic features that could easily shift to adapt to blend into and withstand their environment or disguise themselves as other creatures they encountered.
Their empathic abilities were so great that it is said they shared a manner of hive-mind. In the Age of Dreams, they were conquered, enslaved and kept as indentured labor and a food source by first the Giants, and then the Dragons. They endured terrible suffering under the yoke of their oppressors, but were liberated by the coming of the Gods of the Wheel.
Many of the Firstfolk chose to devote themselves as worshipers to their saviors, becoming the chosen people or Godsworn of the deities; others, however, refused to give up their newly-won freedom, and these the Gods allowed to take their own path. They were, however, soon pushed to the boundaries of their former territories by the exponential growth and development of the new races, particularly Humans , Elves and Orcs, though the Gods forbade the extirpation or assimilation of Firstfolk and wrought great punishment upon those who transgressed their pact with these peaceful beings.
During the Age of Terror, the Firstfolk once again suffered untold horrors as their divine protection vanished and they were beset on all sides both by the now-desperate and ravenously competitive survivors of the Godsworn kingdoms and by the more supernatural evils of extraplanar invasion.
Since that age, the Firstfolk have all but vanished into myth and folklore, and many believe them to be entirely extinct. However, their influence - and their works - sometimes arise in unexpected places, and continue to trickle patiently down through the ages of a wounded world...