Long ago in Middle Earth there existed a race of elves that for reasons unknown bred with humans. These humans were a fierce warrior people from the south. Over the years, a new race was cultivated, a race called the Nólatári. They were half-elves, and so possessed long lives and more wisdom than the humans they had shared their houses with, but were no longer immortal. They were shorter and darker of skin than Middle Earth's other elves, though they had for some reason managed to maintain the signature pointed ears. Shamed by the Nólatári, pureblood elves banished them to the lands in the southernmost most corner of the world, and no one in Lothlorién, Mirkwood, and Rivendell would speak of them, until the entire race was soon forgotten. They came to be great warriors, and protectors of Middle Earth and all of its peoples, even though they had turned their backs on them. When the time of the forging of the rings of power came, The Nólatári were, to their great advantage, overlooked by Sauron, remaining Middle Earth's best-kept secret.