Octas/_fallen

Base Stats:

Skills: Humans can learn any skill.

Humans who don't have reason to use it generally won't know Trade Lingua.

Senses:

Humans have strong tri-chromatic vision that covers the Red through to Violet range with quite vivid colour distinction. They have no natural dark-vision ability.

Humans have average hearing ability and a very weak sense of smell.

Descirption:

Humans are, by far, the most common sapience-capable species on Octas. They generally live in or near towns and villages on the surface of the world , though some choose to live remotely from others of their kind. A small number are even accepted amongst, or at least near, the habitations of other sapient species.

The major occupations of humans include agriculture, manufacturing, trade, research, management. They are of middling ability across-the-board, but are all-the-same quite versatile. They lack any outstanding singular species-defining skills, however individuals can stand out in any area of skill.

Like most animals on Octas, Humans have two primary genders, Male and Female, with a portion of inter-gender individuals. While the physical differences between the genders are obvious when looking at averages, individuals vary far more than the differences between the average, so gender is not a reliable indicator of a specific human's capabilities.

Human societies tend to be hierarchical, with rulership usually determined through lineage, occasionally disrupted by violent dominance-challenges. Unusually, compared to most creatures, human dominance combat is often lethal. Individual societies occasionally dabble with other forms of societal structure, but these invariably revert quickly to being, at best, a hypocritical gloss over the top of their societal-default lineage-hierarchies. The leadership style can span the whole range from generally-beneficent to openly-despotic.

Human attitudes to gender within their own societies tends to be towards gender-role differentiation, however how strictly this is expressed can vary widely from largely-absent to strictly-enforced, with the somewhat-predominant mean being societies with a general inclination towards gendered-roles but few or no social penalties towards individuals that don't follow this inclination.

Humans have strong cultural traditions, including festivals, histories, fashions, language, sports. These traditions contribute greatly to social cohesion and maintenance of social order. There is often distinct trends of differentiation between male and female clothing and body-ornamentation, particularly towards the more affluent end of society.

Humans are capable of acts of selfless kindness and the most debased barbarism, sometimes simultaneously!

A note on Human racial groups.

Race isn't really a thing amongst the humans of Octas. All human racial characteristics are present, and players are encouraged to choose whatever they wish for their characters. It will make no difference to game-play. "Racial" characteristics on Octas breed more along family lines than across whole populations, with plenty of mixing and skipped generations, so a particular skin tone, or eye shape, while often prominent, is no more noteworthy than it being mentioned that you have your great-aunt's nose, or your granfather's chin, or red hair that pops out in a cousin every couple of generations, but can be traced back to that one distant ancestor originally from that village over the mountains where, so it is said, everyone has red hair!

Base Stats:

Skills: Uplift Black Bears can learn any skill that does not require fine manual dexterity.

Uplifted Black Bears cannot write with a pen or brush, but can learn to read, and can scratch letters in things with their claws. Some can also write quite legibly using a claw dipped in ink.

For comparison, non-uplift Black Bears are of half Intelligence and Knowledge and have no ability to learn language or complex skills. Lifespans are half.

Senses:

Bears see the same tri-chromatic colour spectrum as humans, but the colours are weaker and more 'washed out'. Their night-vision is considerably better, however, providing vision down to 1/4 the light levels perceivable by humans.

Bears have an excellent sense of smell. Their hearing is comparable to human.

Description:

Being very solitary creatures, Uplifted Black Bears don't even mix with their own kind, uplifted or otherwise, except for occasional mating, after which the male immediately leaves again, which the females prefer anyway. Uplifted Black Bears can interbreed with non-uplifted Black Bears, producing young with an equal chance of being Uplift or not, however both males and females prefer to mate with other Uplifted of their kind.

Black Bears have a leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone attitude to all language-capable beings, though they tend to get along well with Uplifted Crows.

Uplifted Black Bears, like Uplifted Crows (and probably because of them), speak Trade-Lingua. They are slow speakers and tend to use few words. They can learn to read, but rarely do. Those few that do can usually also write, using a claw dipped in ink, producing a functional and highly-legible script.

Black Bears are opportunistic omnivores but fish and fruits are a the largest part of their diet. They love honey if they can get it.

Black bears are offended by the implication that they raid peoples pic-a-nic baskets. They do, but mentioning it still offends them.

Base Stats:

Skills: Uplift Capybara can learn any skill.

Humans who don't have reason to use it generally won't know Trade Lingua. Otherwise calculate as per human.

Senses:

Capybara are Red/Green colourblind and cannot differentiate strongly between Red/Yellow/Orange/Green, seeing them all as subtle hues of the same colour. They do not have any dark-vision capabilities, however do have whiskers that allow them to move about in total darkness at half normal speed without running into things.

Like Grey Wolves, Capybara can hear much higher frequency sounds than humans. Their sense of smell is comparable to human.

Description:

Shy and skittish, Capybara live well away from humans in particular, but all other language-capable beings in general. They form sizeable communities, usually on elevated planes, consisting of multiple sprawling semi-buried family-boroughs. They don't consider themselves the same species as non-uplift Capybara, any more than humans consider themselves the same species as chimpanzees. Their societies are loosely hierarchical, being more a cooperation between family groups, and are exclusively matriarchal. They are notably more peaceful than humans, but quite capable of violence if pushed.

Capybara have their own languages, as diverse as humans', and can use trade-lingua to the same extent as humans. Their voices are very high-pitched, but perfectly intelligible.

The ranges of trades, skills and interests amongst Uplifted Capybara are quite similar to those of humans. Capybara are probably the most human-like uplifted in this aspect.

Capybara normally walk on their hands and feet, and sit to use tools with their hands. They can use tools or wield weapons while walking or running, but it takes a good deal of effort, so they prefer to sit on the ground while working when it is an option.

Capybara are strictly vegetarian, to the extent that they only eat roots, leafy vegetables, and grasses/grains - fruits and other sweet foods make them ill, and the taste of concentrated sugar is unpleasantly bitter to them. Coca and its derivatives are highly toxic to them, if swallowed, and a skin irritant in the case of general contact. They lack the biological ability to digest meat, and consuming it will cause severe stomach cramps and diarrhoea. Due to higher nutritional intake from agriculture and the cooking of food, they do not need to practice coprophagy like their non-uplift cousins.

At 3 Lengths tall, trying to offend a Capybara is literally punching-down, and no-one will consider it funny.

Base Stats:

Skills: Uplift Crows can learn any skill that does not require hands (though a foot or beak may be able to serve the purpose in some cases).

Crows normally use Trade-lingua, mixing it in with bits of whatever other local languages they may know when that language proves more expressive. Player characters may store this 'auxiliary' language in the 'native language' slot. It may be improved in the same way as any other language (it just starts lower).

Senses:

Crows are quad-chromatic covering the Red-Green-Blue-UVA ranges. This gives them the spectral range of Octopusses and Dragons, but the hue-sensitivity of humans. They see colours brightly by day, and have no dark-vision abilities. Contrary to popular myth, Crows *can* see the colour yellow perfectly well (they just don't associate the colour with edible things).

Crows lack night-vision but have particularly sharp daytime vision, being able to discern detail at eight times the range of humans.

Crows can also discern light polarisation, which in open sky can give strong clues to direction useful in long-distance navigation. Crows' subtly-iridescent-black plumage is instead highly-iridescent-black when seen with light-polarisation-vision (it is not, as sometimes believed, blue or UV-coloured to them, however).

Crows can sense magnetic fields, so instinctively always know (in the absence of interference) which way is north (Octas has a distinct magnetic field with poles well-aligned with its axis of rotation). Note that in Hell the planetary magnetic field is only sporadically detectable over a lot of random magnetic interference of indeterminate origin. In Hell, a Crow would spend a lot of time magnetically-blind.

Crows' sense of hearing and smell are comparable to humans'.

Description:

How so much intelligence can fit in such a small head is a mystery, but uplifted crows are smart. The main limit on their minds is not the size, however, but their relatively short lifespans, so while naturally intelligent, they tend to be somewhat less knowledgeable due to limited time in which to learn. Like any high-intelligence-low-knowledge being, crows tend to just make up true-sounding knowledge based on their prejudices to fill the gaps, often without even being aware they are doing it, which can make them somewhat unreliable as sources of information.

Crows experience time at around one half the speed of other sapient creatures so to them their lives are not quite as short as might be assumed just from their lifespans as measured in years. This also gives them very good reaction times, within the limits of their bodies to physically move to keep up with their brains. Flight having given them naturally light bodies and proportionally strong musculature is a big help here.

Crows are often impatient with much slower-thinking beings. Crows can understand and speak human languages, and can learn to read, but can't write beyond scratching short words into soft surfaces with their beaks (technically they can write as much as they want, but it takes ages!). They mostly use Trade-lingua, with a bit of the local native languages mixed in. Humans tend not to trust crows as they could too easily be spies. Crows find this idea amusing: "Spy on what? Humans? Pah!" (Note: they do make good spies, the trick is to find one with the attention-span for it!)

Crows are very versatile omnivores and can eat just about anything organic. As birds, they taste 'hot/spicy' as 'sweet' and don't get the usual 'burn' that most mammals hate, but some humans, dæmons and non-avian uplifed have learned to enjoy.

It is hard to tell what offends a crow. They are usually the ones doing the offending of others!

Base Stats:

For comparison, non-uplift wolves have Men: 1D + 4 and cannot use any language or learn any significant skills beyond *fetch* and *roll-over*.

Skills: Uplift Wolves can learn any skill that does not require fine motor skills (they have no hands, though a foot, or even mouth, can serve the purpose in a few cases).

Uplift wolves also start with a Tracking Skill of 1D+32, in addition to player-selected skills.

Senses:

Wolves see the same tri-chromatic colour spectrum as humans, but the colours are weaker and more 'washed out', particularly in the Green-Blue range, which they have some trouble differentiating finer hues of. Their night-vision is considerably better, however, providing vision down to 1/4 the light levels perceivable by humans.

Wolves have a beyond-excellent sense of smell, and an extremely good long-term smell-memory.

Wolves can hear much higher frequency sounds than humans, and their hearing in notably sharp.

Descirption:

Loners by nature, Uplift Wolves tend to live indistinguishable from their non-uplifted kin when single, otherwise they form a co-dependent family unit with a long-term mate. Older children often remain with the family to assist with the raising of a next generation of sibling-pups, but will go out on their own at adulthood. Uplifted wolves can interbreed with non-uplifted, in which case pups' uplifted/normal state tends to be half/half, though uplifted wolves generally prefer the companionship of an uplifted mate. Mating is not strictly for-life, but tends to skew to long-term pairing.

As with non-uplift wolves, there is no Alpha-heirachy (this idea was the result of applying the observed behaviour of captivity-stressed wolves to the species as a whole and even the biologist who 'discovered' it subsequently became a driving force in later refuting the faulty theory). Social structure in a wolf pack is based simply on lines of seniority, specifically parents > grown-children > pups. There is no specific gender-dominance, with the dominance in a mating pair, and amongst youngsters, being a matter of individual personality. Wolves tend to be fairly egalitarian outside of age-based family structures, and even within those dominance structures have a strong sense of 'fairness'.

Uplifted Grey Wolves all speak trade-lingua well, along with any other local languages they may be exposed to. They may also read a very small number of words, mainly being able to recognise place-names from mile-markers in their hunting ranges, but they don't write at all.

They are predominately carnivores, but do need some grasses in their diet to remain healthy.

Calling a Grey Wolf a 'dog' is a moderate insult, implying subservient domesticity. "Bitch" on the other hand, is just an alternate word for 'female', and the worst you can do with that word is a 50% chance of implying you are ignorant of visual and scent cues to canine gender, the other 50% chance being giving the impression you think stating the blindingly obvious is an impressive trick.

Base Stats:

Skills: Unicorns generally lack the interest to learn what few humanistic skills they could physically manage.

Senses:

Unicorns are Red/Green colourblind and cannot differentiate between Red/Yellow/Orange/Green, seeing them all as subtly-different hues of the same colour. They do not have any dark-vision capabilities, but have particularly sharp daytime vision, being able to discern detail at four times the range of humans.

Unicorns' hearing and sense of smell are comparable to humans.

Description:

Though they will unashamedly fornicate with horses, unicorns can't produce even sterile hybrids through such activity. They are quite aloof and prideful, and it isn't entirely unjustified: they are very good-looking, even to other species.

Unicorns can learn to understand spoken languages but cannot speak them. Some can scratch out words with their horns. Like uplifted elephants, they often communicate simply by nodding or shaking their heads, or by making horse-like noises of disgust, frustration, boredom or amusement, in response to spoken questions or statements.

They will take a rider, if they like the person enough, and prefer a well-padded saddle over bare-back. They will not accept a bridle or reigns. They physically could pull a cart, but will be offended at the suggestion. A racing-chariot, on the other hand, is quite acceptable, provided it is nice and shiny, though they will be in charge of steering and the best the charioteer can do is hang-on tight and shout suggestions for what direction to go and at what speed.

Unicorns are herbivore grazers and eat grasses. They are also partial to vegetables as well as fruits and sweet things in general, and will consume such to the point of making themselves quite sick, given the chance.

Unicorns are most offended by popular human mythology claiming that their horns are somehow phallic, or that they have any unusual interest in human females, virgin or otherwise (they don't)!

Base Stats:

Skills: Dæmons can learn any skill, but have a strong inclination towards magic-based skills.

Dæmons are required to have the Dæmonic Devices skill, as one of their starting skills.

Dæmons require double-experience-points cost to learning other languages, excepting Trade-lingua, for which the points cost is normal.

Dæmons are almost all left-handed.

Senses:

Like humans, Dæmons have strong tri-chromatic vision that covers the Red through to Violet range with quite vivid colour distinction. Dæmons have slightly better dark vision than humans, able to detect light down to about half the light-level perceivable by humans, however an outdoor-daylight level of light is uncomfortably bright to them to the point of degrading detail of anything in direct sunlight by half. (Sunlight does not actively harm them, though: they do have hands they can shade their eyes with, and they know all about hats!)

Dæmons' hearing and sense of smell are identical to humans'.

Descirption:

Dæmons are quite human-like in general shape but have some distinct physiological differences: While normally about a pace taller than humans (not counting horns), they are thinner and have comparable strength; their skin is a reddish-brown colour; they have hand-length yellow-white horns on their upper-foreheads which can be curly, curved or strait; their hair is normally black (occasionally albino, or grey with age) and begins high on their foreheads, above the horn-line. Eyebrows and eyelashes are thin and black, and adult males have a small triangular tuft of black hair on the bottom of their chins, otherwise their bodies are hairless.

Dæmons also have thin monkey-like tails that don't quite reach the floor. These tails are not strong, only able to lift 1/8 what they could lift in one hand, and are not flexible enough to grasp small objects, but can operate simple devices such as buttons, and could wield very light equipment strapped to the end.

Dæmons' hands have six digits, four fingers, surrounded by an opposable thumb on each side of the hand. Fingernails match their natural hair colour (so usually black). Their feet have four large toes on each, with toenails likewise coloured to match hair-colouring. (The bones that become thumbs on the hands instead become extra arch-support structures inside the feet.)

Like humans, Dæmons have two primary genders, Male and Female, with a small portion of inter-gender individuals. There is no obvious difference between dæmon males and females in stature, facial structure, or vocal pitch, and a loosely-dressed (and beard-shaved) dæmon could pass as either gender easily, even amongst their own kind. Dæmon society does not consider gender - male, female, or otherwise - relevant to anything outside of reproduction, and a common mode of dress, in the form of a short smock, belted at the waist, over loose trousers is quite common for all dæmons.

Dæmons naturally live in small hierarchical communities of loosely-meritocratic nature, in the underground realm known as Hell. While humans tend to assume Dæmons inhabit all of Hell, or that the realms inhabited by dæmons are all of Hell, Dæmons stick to the top two or three dozen levels of the kilometres-deep labyrinth that is all of Hell. They have long since learned to avoid the Depths of Hell, where gods live incarnate and will destroy with neither mercy or trace any who encroach on their domains.

There are, however, pathways through the Depths of Hell, learned through hard and lethal trial-and-error, to twist confusingly past the edges of the gods' senses. Dæmons predominantly use these routes for funeral processions in which the dead are carried to the very bottom of Hell and cast into the Great Swirling Void below the bottom of the world.

Doors to Hell can be found scattered liberally around the world of Octas, usually labelled prominently with the word "Hell" on the door itself, in the letters of the language referred to as Dæmonic, sometimes with other warnings against non-Dæmon entry, also in the Dæmonic Language. These doors, like Hell itself, are indestructible, though not-at-all hard to open if one knows the trick.

Note that 'Hell' is not actually an in-born word in the Dæmonic language. Even amongst dæmons, what these particular letters in this specific order actually mean is a highly contentious issue.

Dæmonic is the native language of all dæmons everywhere on Octas, and they are born with an innate knowledge of the pronunciation and meaning of the core 4096 core words of the language, as well as its grammatical rules. However dæmon infants still need to learn things to apply the words to, before they can communicate coherently. They are also born with existing knowledge of the Dæmonic alphabet and spelling of those 4096 words, but must still learn the manual skill of writing. Signing ability is likewise in-born.

As such, for the first 16 years of life, a Dæmon's language skills for Dæmonic in each sub-skill is equal to their age.

Although almost unheard-of, it is perfectly possible for a Dæmon, raised in isolation from their kind, from a very early age, to develop the Dæmonic language skills in a slightly stilted but entirely usable way with no prompting at all.

Dæmonic is a quite rigidly-consistent language, and Dæmons struggle with the somewhat more ad-hoc nature of other languages and attract a -1 penalty to all language learning rolls in any other language they wish to learn. Even a Dæmon raised in a different language environment from birth will suffer this effect, even for their adoptive-parental language. The Dæmonic language also happens to be the language of magic spoken by the gods, another point of resentment from humans. Humans are, of course, perfectly capable of learning the Dæmonic Language of Magic themselves through study, and some do so, to a high degree of proficiency, despite the social stigma amongst humans.

Casually-spoken/written/signed Dæmonic has a distinctly different tone and cadence to the its much more rigorous use within magical incantation, which requires a much higher level of precision for effective use, but as with the language is general, this precise use is inherent in Dæmons.

Finally, there is a lot of structural similarity between trade-lingua and Dæmonic, though the actual words are mostly different, so Dæmons do not incur any learning penalty for this language, and any dæmon can pick up a general fluency almost instantly and most speak it well.

Unique amongst all other intelligent creatures on Octas, Dæmons can interbreed with humans and produce viable, though usually sterile, offspring. However, just as most humans are put off by something undefinable about the appearance of Dæmons, most Dæmons feel the same way in return, so interbreeding is unheard of outside stories made up largely for their shock or disgust value, by both groups.

In Hell, Dæmons eat a wide variety of fungi, which are colourful, nutritious and tasty, at least if prepared well. They can also eat anything a human can, just as a human can live off Hell's fungi perfectly well, as long as they know which ones are not for eating! Dæmons are not, however, particularly keen on the fatty meat-based diets popular with most humans, but it won't actually harm them, in normal moderation.

Due to their natural skill with the Dæmonic language and associated magics, and their residence in upper-Hell, some Dæmon tribes may have a close, but ambivalent, relationship with the regional god.

The easiest way to offend a Dæmon is to be a human! Though more well-travelled or trade-oriented Dæmons have developed a tolerance for humans in their presence.

Player Issues

Dæmons, while quite human in many aspects, have a very significant disadvantage via the Control Dæmon spell. Any competent magic user, including the Gods themselves, can use this spell to try to take over the will of a Dæmon, and if successful, the Dæmon looses all self-autonomy for the duration of the spell's effect.

Worse, the more advanced Summon Dæmon spell can teleport a Dæmon away into servitude elsewhere in the world without notice, though at least the spell has the good manners to teleport them back afterwards (irrespective of whether they survive whatever task they are forced into!).

This is role-playable, but since people controlling or summoning Dæmons to do their bidding rarely have the Dæmon's longevity in mind, it is simply difficult to maintain a Dæmon character for any length of time without special plot-armour that breaks the usual operation of the Octas magical world.

Base Stats:

Skills: Dragons can learn any skill that does not require fine manual dexterity. (They not only have fat fingers, but claws on the ends of them!)

Dragons cannot write with a pen or brush, but can learn to read, and can scratch letters in things with their claws. Some few, with many years of practice, can also write quite legibly using a claw dipped in ink.

Dragons can fly under their own power. They can also carry, in flight, 1 block of weight per point of strength, in addition to their base body weight. Movement speed in flight is 8 times walking speed, in still air or a cross-wind. In a head wind or tail wind, adjust this appropriately for wind speed.

DevNote: Formalise movement speed.

DevNote: Weapons (chin-cannons: flamer, beamer, sonics).

Senses:

Dragons see in Red-Blue-LowUV tri-chromatic vision. They can see yellow-through-green, but perceive them as composite colours between the red and blue primaries, just as humans see the colours orange-through-yellow as composite colours between red and green. This makes them less sensitive to subtle shifts in hue in this range, but they get to see up into the low ultra-violet range instead. In that ultra-violet range, nitrogen-oxygen atmospheres are quite hazy (just as blue is hazy through kilometres of air, UV is hazy over hundreds of meters). In the UV spectrum, various organic residues (such as traces of urine, blood or saliva) that are invisible to humans are instead highly visible. This is very useful for tracking.

Dragons' hearing and sense of smell are comparable to humans.

Description:

Dragons are about three times the height of a human. They have bat-like stretched-skin wings between their fore-limbs and bodies, two hind-limbs for walking/perching and long flexible necks. They are generally covered in short coarse (almost scale-like) fur that is naturally yellow, orange, brown or black, occasionally albino-white, or sometimes grey with age. The females lay leathery eggs in clutches of 2-4. Eggs are approximately 1 length in diameter and 1 block in weight. Eggs require incubation and cannot be left unattended for more than a few hours.

Females may abandon freshly-laid eggs if they don't wish to incubate them, however once a decision to incubate has been made, she will defend her eggs/young fiercely. Males generally don't know their own offspring but will often take on a distant-parental role for their sisters' children, keeping an eye out for their welfare, sometimes even adopting them if the sister is unable to care for them for some reason.

Dragons do not differentiate gender outside of reproductive purposes, and there is no appreciable difference between genders. Dragons are technically mammals, and females possess milk-producing glands, but these are not physically prominent. Cows' milk boiled with goats' milk in a 3:1 ratio is an adequate substitute for dragons' milk for the feeding of hatchlings, though dragons raised on this initial diet tend to grow up slightly smaller and weaker.

Dragons tend to be solitary creatures. They are day-predators and do not have sonar (unless by magic), or night-vision. They are mostly-carnivorous by preference but capable of living off a vegetarian diet, though only with considerable care and effort to getting the right dietary balance. Unlike most other sapient creatures of Octas, dragons do not consider it cannibalism to eat other language-capable species, though young dragons will often loudly proclaim the virtues of this attitude to their elders during their rebellious years, and some small number do actually retain the attitude into adulthood.

How do you know a dragon won't eat you? It will tell you so - loudly and frequently enough that you start to wish it actually would!

Dragons have difficulty manufacturing their own tools, but are perfectly capable of tool-use within the limits of their manual dexterity. They commonly have an under-chin harness for a flame or beam weapon which they can aim with their head and activate with their jaw muscles.

Player Issues

Adult dragons tend to be big and powerful beings. Even a very young dragon is likely only suitable for joining much more experienced and skilled adventurers of other species.

Base Stats:

Skills: Uplift Elephants can learn any skill that does not require fine motor skills on two hands (they have the equivalent of one-handed fine motor skills on their trunk, though). The tip of their trunk is dexterous enough to substitute for up to two opposable fingers in most situations.

Elephant spoken languages are largely inaudible to other sapient species due to the very low frequency of sound used, excepting Orca who can hear them and could learn to understand and speak them, given opportunity and motivation.

Indian Elephants often understand Trade Lingua though they cannot speak it.

Senses:

Elephants are blind to the colour blue. They are not just blue-green colourblind (seeing both colours as subtle hues of the same colour), but actually see blue and violet as the absence of colour, so black. Likewise, they see purple (a red-blue mix that appears similar to violet due to a quirk of human vision) as simply red (the colour, not the 80's soul/pop band). Also note that Elephants have particularly bad visual range in general, and cannot see anything farther than 64 lengths away as more than a blobby blur.

Elephants can hear well below the frequency ranges of any other sapient being, though their upper-frequency range is about half that of humans. They are also highly sensitive to low-frequency sounds carried through the earth, via their feet. Their sense of smell is comparable to humans.

Description:

By far the largest land-dwelling uplifted, they are the only uplifted who are inclined to live near humans. While they prefer to form their own communities of a few dozen individuals, they welcome human visitors to their communities and also visit human settlements, even supplying heavy labour for humans in return for suitable recompense.

Elephant communities are ostensibly matriarchal, however there is not really much difference in social status between genders except that males, on becoming adult, leave their birth community to seek out another, usually nearby, elephant community to join, so in-community family-lines are female-lineage-based, while inter-community relations tend to be strengthened by male connections to their birth-places. This results in a strong skew towards female leaders and male diplomats, but neither role is strictly gender-exclusive.

Elephants can learn to understand spoken human languages of the regions they inhabit but cannot speak them. Often replies to questions or statements with nods and shakes of their head are sufficient communication for their daily interactions with humans. They have languages of their own that operate well below human hearing thresholds. These languages are not regularised, and elephant communities far-enough separated cannot automatically understand each-other. Elephants can learn to write language with a large pen or brush held in their trunk. They also can draw and paint at equivalent levels of artistic ability to humans, and many enjoy doing so.

Elephants are herbivores and eat leaves. In large quantities! They also very much enjoy fruit and nuts, and can get good nutritional value out of vegetables. They enjoy cold cooked food, but do not require their food to be cooked. They don't like the taste, or smell, of cooked meat, though it won't actually harm them.

Never call an Indian Elephant an "African Elephant" their low-frequency hearing range risks them hearing it as "A frickn' elephant", and they weigh several tonnes more than you!

Player Issues

The physical size and weight of an Elephant character will likely restrict, or at least greatly slow, their access to indoor or heavily-forested areas. Narrow mountain passes are also problematic. While non-uplift elephants don't like travelling by boat, their uplift cousins are fine with it, provided they judge the boat is sturdy enough.

Uplifted are any normally-non-sapient animal that has human-equivalent intelligence. Any large animal can potentially be an uplifted, though only a small sub-set of the animal kingdom have ever been provably identified to have uplifted members. Uplifted tend to avoid human population centres, and either live alone, hide amongst their non-uplifted kin, or form small communities in remote locations.

Although uplifted are often of similar intelligence to Humans, they don't necessarily have the same drives and experiences focusing that intelligence, so while equivalent, it can still come across as quite alien, as Human intelligence can seem to them.

No Uplifted has ever been observed wearing pants, or a little button-up coat! However, scarves, shawls, belts and sashes are popular amongst some community-living uplifted. Collars and neck-ties are offensive to them, seen as symbols of slavery. They may tolerate a harness if it is for the purpose of carrying things and they are able to remove it themselves at-will.

As with most large creatures of Octas, the Uplifted can be male and female, with a small portion of inter-gender or non-gender individuals. Interactions between these groups varies somewhat with species.

Sapient species Human, Dæmon, Dragon and Unicorn are not generally considered 'uplifted' as they have no non-uplifted equivalent. Both Humans and Dæmons could technically be classified as "Uplifted Apes" but get an exception due to how far they are diverged from other apes. Unicorns scrape over that arbitrary line against horses too, mainly because there are no non-uplift one-horned-horses. Dragons are rather bat-like, but they have scales and lay eggs, which no bat does.