Physically, they're huge, with an average length of about 10 feet. However, when on the ground, they can reach a height of 7 feet at most. They have a very wide mouth with two peculiar appendages on the sides called cephalic fins. Their arms feature large triangular "wings" that can easily span 16 to 17 feet in width. The back coloring is quite uniform blueblackish, while the ventral side is milky white. Like other saltwater fishes Anthro, they have no legs but a long tail fin, and their skin can be temporarily covered with mucus used in skin breathing. This means they can live out of water for three or four days, but they have a constant need to fully bathe their body in saltwater at least once a day. Their fries are born ovoviviparous, meaning they hatch within the mother's body, and families usually can have even more than a dozen fries during their life.

Since prehistoric times, the people of the Manta rays have always had trouble managing contacts and links with other peoples. Their main difficulty derives from never having developed a linguistic apparatus. All Manta rays are biologically mute. However, this allowed their higher brain to develop a telepathic communication skill so they could communicate with each other through mental contact. In past times, this telepathy was a disabling skill, as no other race had yet developed the logical-reasoning ability needed to receive others' thoughts. The first race that could understand them were the Lemurs of Jandyz Island, who have always had a natural inclination for communication and thoughts. Over centuries, both Manta rays and other races began to get used to such differences, making them able to communicate telepathically with everyone.

Generally, the people of the Manta rays don't give importance to the stationarity of life, and therefore they keep a nomadic lifestyle. They never stop to farm or breed, and their nutrition always comes from hunting/fishing and gathering. They don't even build houses or dwellings, only a few rare residential centers (considered "passing through" and never exclusively owned) on coastal areas where they most often have commercial exchanges. Their politics are of little importance: a single ruler, called the patron, holds the decision-making power in internal and foreign affairs for a decade or so. The patron is democratically elected by the vassals' council, who are seen as family-chiefs or group-chiefs.

They speak the Itthen language, common to all Anthro fish races, a guttural language accompanied by strong facial expressions, understandable even underwater where sounds are less easy to hear (perhaps a Japanese gibberish).

Religiously they are mostly devoted to Teeje (deity of navigation and looting), Lotru Kori (deity of madness and nightmares), and Sia Mori (deity of dreams and will), but here and there also thrive the cult of Vael Nhor (deity of magic and knowledge) and Cilldyn (deity of exploration and stars).

Their Ancestral Princes were Aapravasi and Ykkomos, who taught their race to always follow the "flow". By this, they not only mean the physical sense and therefore the importance of following sea currents in migratory trips but also the abstract and philosophical sense that derives from it, which is to follow the course of events and situations and try to avoid rowing against them, as much as possible. The history and social evolution of the world have their main course to follow, which some casually define as "destiny," but for a Manta ray, it's something more important.

Footnote
Typical of the Manta ray people is the use of a strange boat called nādadōni, a large vessel for cargo that has sails placed on the keel's sides, rather than above, to exploit sea currents instead of wind. It also has a sort of "artificial lung" woven with seaweed fibers that functions as a swim bladder, like other underwater peoples' boats.