Elephants

The Elephant people can be generally compared to a blend of Buganda Bantu society and members of Proboscidea biological order.
Elephants are one of the fifty-five races of anthropomorphic mammals that populate Yanìs, and are grouped in the subgenus of Mastodon together with Boars, Hippos, Oxen and Rhinos.

Physically, they are among the biggest races on the planet. They have an average height that easily exceeds 10 feet and a weight that varies in excess of 5 or 6 tons. They have grey, folded skin that is covered with sparse, bristled dark-brown to black hair. Their trunk is a prehensile elongation of the upper lip and nose, and it is a highly sensitive organ: they use it for smelling, feeding, drinking, producing sounds, collecting, holding, and sometimes even defending and attacking. Both males and females have tusks that weigh up to 30 kg and can be even 6 feet long. These are curved forward and continue to grow throughout their lifetime. Furthermore, cases in which elderly males undergo a slow, albeit evident mutation, assuming more and more the appearance of woolly mammoths with advancing age, are not rare among them.

The Elephant people have always been ruled by a queen called the matriarch. She holds all political powers, and in some cases, even judicial powers. This element is combined with a strong emphasis on personal initiative as a tool to achieve a higher social status, regardless of one's origins. Everyone builds their own destiny by working hard and carefully choosing their friends, allies, and protectors. Males' social status, on the other hand, is determined by the network of patronage relationships that they manage to establish. Not by chance, a father often sends his cubs to live with his protectors to bind this kind of relationship.

Being an herbivorous race, their society is centered around crops and agriculture. Bananas are among the main crops since they do not impoverish the soil, but corn, sorghum, and potatoes also hold a certain importance. Their villages generally include several dozen houses and are usually located on hills' slopes, while the hilltop is dedicated to cultivation. They are among the very first races in entire Sarema to have developed stone and mortar dwellings, giving life to large palaces and monumental squares.
The Elephant people have not developed a true literary culture of their own, since few females get away from politics to pursue writing or art. On the other hand, males prefer studying to creativity, and therefore foreign literature is privileged. Nonetheless, their culture is recognized far and wide for in-depth studies in traditional magic and meta-magic.