Albatrosses

The Albatross people can be generally compared to a blend of Yupik indigenous society and members of the Diomedeidae biological family.
Albatrosses are one of the twelve races of anthropomorphic birds that populate Yanìs, and are grouped in the subgenus of Anglers together with Cranes and Kingfishers.

Physically, they are of average height and build, standing at about 6 feet tall with a musculature that is often much stronger than it may seem due to their ability to fly, as their strong wings have a wingspan of about 10 feet and need hollow bones. Their plumage varies with age: juveniles start off chocolate brown, but as they age, they become whiter. Adults have white bodies with black and white wings, and males have more white wings than females. Their large bill is pink, as are their webbed feet. They also have a salt gland that is situated above the nasal passage, which helps to desalinate their bodies. Their chicks are born ovoviviparous, meaning they hatch within the mother's body, and families usually never have more than 3 or 4 of chicks throughout their life.

The Albatross people are nomadic by nature, although their territory is "only limited" to the Qawiathun archipelago. Traditionally, families spend the spring and summer in constant flight and then reunite with others in villages during the winter. Since their origins, the Albatross people have given themselves an incredibly important task: the control and constant patrolling of the Mirook continent. This task, partly deriving from their nomadic-flying nature, and partly deriving from the possibility of observing pirate vessels' movements from above, has over time become the fulcrum of their entire civilization. The small, independent kingdom of Albatrosses is often referred to as the "Ices' Great Barrier," due to the thousands and thousands of towering icy watching towers scattered across the Antarctic border.

Most of their houses are built with a mixed technique of clay bricks and sculpted ice, but they usually live in common houses, the qasgiq. The qasgiq is the fulcrum center for ceremonies and jamborees, where one can sing, dance, and tell stories. Next to the qasgiq, there is always the sweet house, or ena, which is in some cases connected to the qasgiq through suspension bridges. While the qasgiq is often used as a place where males teach survival and hunting techniques to youngsters, in the ena, females teach sewing, cooking, and weaving. Each winter, for a short time, chicks exchange, and males teach their daughters survival techniques while females teach their sons how to cook and sew. Albatrosses' group dances are generally static: all movements are made exclusively with the upper body and wings, but doesn't mean they lack expressiveness and rhythm.