Manephaunt (5e Race)

Design Note: This race, specifically its history especially with regards to its evolution, is highly specific to Tales of Kaimere. This does not make it impossible to implament into a game, just something that DMs should consider with their campaigns should players consider wishing to play as a manephaunt.

Manephaunt

On the distant planet of Kaimere, the native human species have to share their homes with ferocious creatures, from giant theropod dinosaurs, mutated aberrations and downright demonic abominations. But they are also no strangers to intelligent species that are less hostile and not so human. One such figure in the folklore of the Free States, is the Chugaith or Elephant folk, a race of small elephants who sailed on the seas and traded with the peoples of Kaimere until the Age of Witches. However, there is truth in these legends: while not humanoid, the Chugaith, also called Khorikoim by the peoples of the Kenta Islands, are a true race of proboscideans which are small and have a highly advanced culture, referred to by the Assembly as Manephaunt.

Physical Description

A werephaunt by Dinomaster337

While outwardly they seem to be small elephants, they are in fact members of a group of Kaimeren proboscideans known as Oliphaunts, highly derived gomphotheres that are only distantly related to elephants. The classic characteristic of gomphotheres is having four tusks, two upper and two lower tusks, and manephaunts retain this, although they are not nearly as large in proportion to their bodies as their mainland cousins. Manephaunts also do not exhibit as extreme sexual dimorphism as larger proboscideans, though males (called Werephaunts) are slightly taller and have longer tusks than females (Wifphaunts). Unlike insular dwarf elephants, manephaunts seem to express triats more consistant with neoteny such as larger, more forward facing eyes, which results in the adults looking like juveniles of larger mainland species. Hair color on the visited island generally ranged from yellow to reddish brown but black, grey, and white haired individuals are also known.

History

While manephaunts are known by the Assembly and Kentarim Khalin, in accordance with treaties the latter have with the manephaunts, they and the Assembly have kept the location of the island and existence of the little proboscideans a secret, with much of the Assembly's information on them and their culture being classified. However, there are some reasonable inferences about their history that can be made based on the information that is known about their matriarch and of their physiology.

Oliphaunt Evolution

Beginning with their evolution, it is immediately apparent that manephaunts are descended from the grassland clade of oliphaunts: while gomphotheres have been present in Kaimere for 14.2 million years, following the aftermath of the Dynastic Extinction which prompted a harvest, and are indeed the first proboscideans introduced to the planet, the grassland clade descended from a species harvested 12 mya, after titanosaurs' return to the Known World from the north resulting in habitat changes as well as the introduction of large megaraptorans that preyed on their young, which was better suited for open habitats that were becoming common at this time. These gomphotheres had longer legs and tusks than the closed forest specialists of earlier harvests and quickly adapted to grasslands that, while not as common at the time as fern prairies, had no substantial large mammal competition.
The resulting population boom did attract the attention of megaraptorans, but rather than selecting for habitats the predators preferred not to follow, these gomphotheres instead invested heavily in higher intelligence, relying on more complex social structures and highly involved parental care to defend themselves which proved to be successful with some specializations of their tusks for combat against the equally sized predators: rather than losing their lower tusks has non-Kaimeran proboscideans had done in history, grassland oliphaunts used their upper tusks to restrain the predator while the lower tusks were violently driven into the beast as an independent weapon, circumventing the retainability of the tusks that is such a problem for non-oliphaunt proboscideans. However, it was truly their social structure that was the deciding factor on their survival, with the near total elimination of musth to allow males to be more tolerant of each other and less likely to strike out on their own, thus acting as guards for the herd.
Despite these adaptations providing such an advantage to the point of completely restricting non-Kaimeran proboscideans introduced in future harvests, the grassland oliphaunts went extinct in the Known World about half a million years ago with the arrival of houze grass, the ghlanos which was more adapted to this aggressive plant, and the uktan: although on the eastern continent of Kairul beyond the Known World the oliphaunts had adapted alongside the grass and animals that also fed on it, Ni'Khari oliphaunts were unprepared for such pressures and its introduction along with the new competition from both harvests and Kairul resulted in their extinction outside the eastern continent.

From Sailing to Isolation

While the grassland oliphaunts seemed extinct in the Known World, it seems possible that one population may have found a sanctuary from the predators: during initial contact, the matron of the contacted clan mentioned that one of their origin myths involved sailing from a different island much closer to the mainland to the present archipelago. While she did not know for certain and different clans seem to claim to be native, the idea that the manephaunt ancestors swam to an island closer to the mainland is plausible, as proboscideans are highly proficient swimmers and many dwarf elephants are known in the islands to the south of the Known World. If the island was closer to the equator, than this also explains why the manephaunt require clothing during the cooler periods.
Naturally, the island's landmass caused the oliphaunts to rapidly shrink in size and they seem to have ended up relying so much on their intelligence that they were pushed into sapience and developing a complex culture. It seems likely based both on the distance of the archipelago from any continents, the deep waters surrounding it, and folklore of both the Kentarim and Free States, that the manephaunts were, at least at some point in their history, highly proficient sailors as well, until settling in the archipelago and abandoning that lifestyle at least beyond the nearby islands. During the height of the trade with the Kentarim, many metal tusk caps were made and they seemed to have mastered sufficient metal working to produce it regularly given good trade.
There are legends of the threats they faced in the past, including a race of seals with clawed limbs that they used to walk on land that were culled by past heroes to make the island safe. Aside from the occasional pterosaur, there are no regular threats to the manephaunt on their home. However, manephaunt also have legends of terrible monsters led by great insects that would abduct them and slaughter those who resisted that bares striking similarities to legends of Frist Children abductions on Kaimerans, although those are easier to explain due to the prolonged lives of Kaimerans. This coupled with Kaimeran invasions during the Kaimeran Dark Ages have left them highly suspicious of outsiders, to the point were only the Kentarim remained in contact after this period.

First Contact

While trade between the Manephaunt and Kentarim continued through the Dark Ages and Mercantile Age, the Kentarim continued to honor their agreement with the manephaunt to keep their location a secret and that their existence be nothing more than legend among other peoples. Even as the Qajarith Republic began to dominate the Kenta Islands and forcibly bring them under their control, many of the elders took the secret of the manephaunt to their graves. While stories of the Chugaith and Khorikoim continue to be told to this day, most Kaimerans consider them just that: stories.
It was not until the 1910s that naturalists of the Assembly, an organization dedicated to keeping Kaimere secret and helping to understand the natural history of the planet, found the island chain and began to survey it, although in accordance with Assembly procedure the studies were as noninvasive as possible once it became clear the islands were inhabited. Initially, the anticipated inhabitants were either Kaimerans or some other descendant of Homo erectus, but the true nature of the manephaunt quickly became clear even with their noninvasive procedures. Once this reached the ears of a Kentarim Assembly consultant, they informed the agents of their treaties with the manephaunt and thus they were given the orders to await the consultant's arrival before making contact.
Before said consultant could even arrive however, the Assembly agents were quickly discovered and captured, taken before their leader: the matron and witch, Skiru. She used her magic to communicate with a witch from the Assembly and by the time that the consultant had reached the Assembly vessel, the respective witches had both come to an understanding. Skiru expressed in difference to the term used to describe her people, primarily because vocalization is a very minor part of their communication, and so the Assembly differs to manephaunt, which is formed from the archaic words for "man" and "elephant." Contact was minimal out of concerns for transmission of diseases to the islanders, but Skiru did consent to a brief study and a series of interviews in exchange for information on the outside world, metals to use for their tusk caps, and luxury goods. While several manephaunt have since joined the Assembly to fill in some details of their culture and history as well as to satiate their curiosity of the outside world, they have thus far respected the treaties and wishes of privacy of their ancestors, and as per Assembly policy of noninvasiveness, Skiru's tribe is the only manephaunt peoples contacted.

Society

What is known of Manephaunt society and culture is limited, as contact has been strictly maintained at just the tribe led by Skiru met in the initial contact. However, from that several facts can be prescribed and manephaunt have joined the Assembly to clarify and add context to some details, though these are classified in accordance with their requests of privacy and secrecy.
Skiru's tribe was made up of seven matrilineal clans, several of which descend from Skiru herself while others integrated into the tribe from neighboring islands in the archipelago, and between all seven clans the tribe's population measures a thousand strong which according to the wifphaunt witch and her historians put them on the lower end of the average tribe. Skiru did not feel obliged to estimate a total number for her people, but when asked if there was concern for the overall population she dismissed the notion as absurd. Assuming the entire archipelago is populated, including the islands much larger than the 4 by 9 mile island of Skiru's people, and that there are other islands beyond the archipelago populated as Skiru claims, this has placed the number of estimated individuals in the overall population to be anywhere between 40-100,000, which while their ranges is restricted seems quite stable.
Quite unusual for proboscideans, manephaunt are omnivores, able to dine on a variety of foods. While they primarily grow grass, a variety of kelp, seagrass, and other seafood rounds out the cast of food groups. In addition, there is also a highly nutritious species of mushroom that is cultivated. As proficient swimmers, like almost all proboscideans, manephaunt comb the beaches and barrier reefs interior and, though they avoid open waters due to mosasaurs and sharks, as much as half of their food comes from the sea.

Aromas and Acostics

Despite their small stature, manephaunt juveniles (aka kinderphaunts) take 15 years of age to reach maturity, which gives their highly derived intelligence plenty of time to mature and sink in. This is essential as manephaunt, like humanoids, employ a wide variety of tools to with which they use to live their daily lives, including well developed agriculture that is done with a plow that is pushed and pulled with the jaws and trunk. Manephaunt wear a variety of clothing especially during the colder months, typically made of fiber textiles woven in a loom-like contraption. Their tools and clothing are almost always functional in design and dies are rarely utilized, at first assumed to be due to their color deficient vision compared to humans. Skiru however was quick to prove this notion false: while manephaunt are color difficient, struggling to distinguish between green and red, the truth behind their lack of colors in clothing is in fact due to their smell being much more important.
Manephaunt art focuses less on mixing colors and much more heavily on mixing aromas and perfumes, the blend of complimentary or conflicting scents they spritz on their bodies, clothing, and adornments being a symbol of pride for many manephaunt. Unfortunately, much of these subtleties and the hard work that goes into it is completely lost on humanoids that lack the derived sense of smell that manephaunt have, some scents even being completely undetectable. Auditory decorations are also employed, with the sounds that certain ornaments make being highly attractive along with their scents. Manephaunt find the notion of physical attractiveness quite unrelatable and real beauty lies in one's scent and sounds.

Warriors Among Pacifists

Being descended from highly cooperative animals, manephaunt do not practice warfare, or at least not often, and their weapons are less to be used on each other and moreso on the predators they face in their day to day lives. This is the purpose of the barugru, the warrior class of the manephaunts, which is also the name for their signiture and preferred weapon. This weapon is a helmet that acts as a shield, usually made of wood with leather from typically a sea going animal like a seal stretched over it, reminiscent to the frills of ceratopsians and secured to the tusks with caps made of wood, shell, obsidian, or in some cases metal. Some will have bright patterns drawn upon their barugru, as while they themselves aren't much for bright colors, they deal with many threats that can see a wide range of colors, including theropod dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and in the past humans. While the make of the barugru is primarily intimidation, the tusks caps serve as good weapons to disable an opponent's legs and the shield sufficiently blocks over head attacks.

Manephaunt Names

Much like the majority of Maniphaunt cultural practices, their naming conventions are classified by the Assembly. However, there is some commonalities that can be gleamed.

Male: Barugru (also the word for "warrior"), Nogrugu, Morgaga, Enkalu, Hakuru

Female: Skiru*, Haru, Mali, Ebu, Kephku, Lilu, Kahi
*This is the only canon name given at the time of making this page, and as such the other names are speculation based on limited information.

Manephaunt Traits

The pony sized, sophant proboscideans of the hidden archipelago north of the Known World of Kaimere.
Ability Score Increase. Your Wisdom score increases by 2 and your Strength score increases by 1.
Age. As probascideans, manephaunts are long lived and slow to age, reaching maturity at around 15 years of age. Manephaunts can live well into their 70s and on rare occasions can even can even live past 100.
Alignment. Manephaunts are just as morally complex as any humanoid.
Size. Manephaunts are short creatures, with the tallest males only barely pushing 3 feet at the shoulder, but are quite heavy, averaging between 130-250 lbs. Your size is Medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Elephantine Body. Your creature type is Beast. Additionally, you are unable to use normal armor and armor and weapons made specifically for you takes 1.5 times as long to make than their regular counterparts. You can however use normal weapons and items with your trunk, as long as they do not have the "two handed" property. If you are using a weapon you are not proficient in, you have disadvantage on attack rolls made with those weapons. You cannot mount another creature, but may allow a Small creature to mount you.
Elephantine Weapons. Your tusks are natural weapons which can be used to make unarmed strikes. Your tusks deal 1d4 + your Strength modifier of piercing damage. This increases to 1d6 at 5th level and to 1d8 at 10th level.
Keen Smell. Manephaunts share the keen noses of their larger cousins, being more proficient than even canines in olfactory detection. You have advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on smell.
Never Forget. You have advantage on Intelligence (History) checks to recall something from within the past year.
Nose Knows. Having such a powerful nose comes with perks that humanoids quite get. You may add your proficiency bonus to Wisdom (Insight) checks, by using their scent to determine their emotional state. If you are already proficient in Wisdom (Insight) checks, you may double your proficiency bonus. Insight checks made in this way can only convey emotional states (sadness, hunger, agitation, etc.) and any information more complex than that is beyond the scope of this trait.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write in Common. You can also speak Manephaunt but only write it in a broken form. Manephaunt communication is highly sophisticated, with vocalization only being a minor component and smell being a much more important; Emotional states between manephaunts are communicated through scent, which means statements of these states like "I am hungry" while acceptable as phrases, are often seen as childish redundancies. Visuals are also important, with the positioning of the ears and trunk adding subtle nuance that can wildly change the meaning of the statement, but at their core, manephaunt communication is done by scent with any visual cues and vocalization is clarification, nuance, politeness, or accommodation for disabled individuals. This is not to say that completely vocal or visual communication is alien to manephaunts, just that to them it lacks the nuance and streamlined nature of scent based communication.

Random Height and Weight

Base Height	Height Modifier*	Base Weight	Weight Modifier**
2′ 9''	+1d6	120 lb.	× (1d4) lb.
*Height = base height + height modifier **Weight = base weight + (height modifier × weight modifier)

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