Cnissites

The Cnissites (/ˈknɪsaɪt/; Horil: Knisostaśka; Archaic Horil: ^KAKNI-so-so-ta-śa-ka), or endonymically, the Cenogaghs (Elvish: Cënogaghen), were a people who flourished during the Bronze Age between about 1400 and 1100 BCA in the region of Karnika in west-central Sossis. Very little is known about them, but horil records indicate they were anthropoid. Their own records, what few have survived, are in the Elvish language, but written in a modified Horil script. They have been variously theorised to have been an elvish people, a human people, or a race of unknown, extinct beings.

Racial Status

It's unknown just who or what the Cnissites were, and have been variously theorised to have been an elvish people, a human people, or a race of unknown, extinct beings. Those who theorise they were elves support their argument by citing that they used the Elvish language, and that they were described in horil records similarly to humans, but were not described under the moniker "Grrmkofshko". This theory, is, however, not widely supported, as no explanation is given for why or how elves and elven records disappear for three and a half millennia. Evidence potentially favouring them as a human people comes from their description, and the fact that when they were first described, there are no contemporary records containing the word "Grrmkofshko" in the areas where "Cnissite" was used, meaning the word could have been the word used for human in the western horil regions. The theory that they were some other species entirely also has supporters, whom hold various ideas about what they might have been. The most popular theory posits they were some remnant slave race held by the elves freed after or possibly even responsible for the Elvish Collapse, that eventually migrated south and made contact with the horils. They had known how to speak and understand Elvish, as to follow their masters' commands, but could not read it, and so had no system of writing until contact with the horils and adoption of their script. Another, though widely discredited theory, is that they were an extinct Orsid race; however, the Orsid races are not known to be related to the elves.
It is unknown why they disappeared, but they began to disappear from the record and their own records ceased around 1100 BCA. It has been theorised they were destroyed or scattered by the expanding human tribes, or that, if they had been human, they were assimilated into them.