First time Heinrich Müller meet an Pachyderm on a trading outpost, he was taken a bit aback by what he saw. Take an elephant, slim him down and shorten him to about eight feet of shoulder height, with an oversized cranium and a very flexible trunk with prehensile, multiple-split lips, and a coat basically covered in wide brimmed pouches hanging over his back, shoe-ed in soft rubber soled socks calmly sucking a drink from a bucked on the table. Makes you want to sober up or order another drink. But then the translator software kicks in adn you get to chat with the fellow, and he's almost like a regular fellow sharing the bar with you. He's wearing a harness with two slender smart robotic arms extended from the harness, upon command positioning themselves to grasp whatever the trunk pushed into their grippers, allowing for very fine manipulation of objects. Further attached to the harness is a polished metalic insignia, and he wonders why one is showing a large club and a shield, which leads to a nice discussion about where such signs came about.
On the origin of the people you ask me traveler among the stars? That is lost in tales an legend, like the first groove. But you asked, and thus I will tell you of the tale.
In the beginning the people lived near the first creek, its waters sweet and its banks lined with growing green all year long. The spirits blessed the people with a quick wit, long life and tales to tell at night. Our trunks were prehensile and able to grasp fruits growing on the trees and pluck sweet grasses and life was good.
And there among the people lived a bull named Bru-Haht, he was not the largest and strongest of bulls, but he was observant and made discoveries. He found a straight branch lying on the shore of the first creek, stripped of twigs and bark by the waters, and grasped it, swinging it around playfully.
And there on the banks of the first creek grew the first JOkarus, trees of sweet shots and sweeter fruit, but the people had picked all the low growing fruits and the largest bulls uprooted the trees to get at the high branches, leaving the trees to wither and die on the ground, yielding no more sweet jokaro fruits.
And thus Bruh-Haht swung his stick in paly and pondered, and then walked to a still standing tree and used his brach to reach high and shake the fruits from the high branches, and they were sweet and full of seeds.
And as he ate the fruits, the spirits blessed Bruh-Haht with inspiration, and he had seen seeds germinate before. WHat if he took the seeds, who were hard and not sweet toeat anyway, and scattered them across soft soil? would eh not have sweet shots and and growing trees then?
And so he did, and watched over his patches of seeds and sweet shots and only plucked those growing too close to each other, and waited, chasing away animals and other people with his branch, as it gave him power to harm without meeting the tusks of larger bulls.
And the spirits smiled on him, as then the jokara blossomed all year and yielded fruit every day.
And as he over the years hand many jokara trees growing under his watch, he had many wives flocking to him and children aplenty. Children who ate the sweet fruits and thus had time to play and make discoveries instead of foraging all the time growing up. And thus the first groove was planted, and grew, and the people thrived on the shores of the first creek and Bruh.Haht is remembered by the people in legend forevermore as the first Guardian of the Groove.
And the years went by and Bruh-Haht passed away and is honored forevermore, untill one day the great bull wandered by and shock the earth with his step and trampled the first source and the first creek fell dry and watered the groove no more and the people hungered, thirsted and thus were scattered over the plains carrying seeds with them and where they found water, planted jokara and watched over them. And as the jokara away from the first groove no longer bore fruit all year, the people learned to plant other fruit and grasses to tide them over untill summer, when the sweet fruits blessed them again.
But away from the first groove, life was harsher, and other creatures hunted the people. There was the leopard, who lurked in trees and dropped down on calves and tore out their throat, and hid back in the branches again. But the people had learned use branches to shake fruits from trees, and shaking sleeping jaguars from trees was easy for the powerful bulls, and thus the jaguars were trampled.
Then there were the fierce lions, gathering in prides and as large as young-lings, with sharp claws and powerful jaws, and they hunted younglings and hid in the veldt. But the bulls gathered and worked together and charged the lions den and trampled the lions untill they hunted the people no more.
Most terrefying though were the willy plains apes, who like the people used sticks and sharp stones and discovered teh secrets of fire. They were not the fastest, or strongest, but they were clever and nimble, dancing around the people and inflicting small wounds, untill like a horde of ants to a large beetle they overwhelmed a bull with their numbers. But the people were stronger, and where a bull stepped, a plains ape was crushed. Thus the people and the apes fought over the plains. Then the apes learned how to throw sticks, and bound sharpened stones to the tips, hiding in cliffs and atop mountains only to come down to hunt the people. And Ashrat-Tam the first shield bearer pondered what to do, and took the felxible shots of a water watcher tree, adn wove them together into a shield, and this was able to block thrown sticks. And the bulls came together and found that now they were able to ward off the thrown sticks, but they then had to charge down the plains apes and trample them, as they couldn't yield a shield and a club at the same time. And the apes them often would plant their sharp spears in he ground and te charging bull would impale himself. Then Ashrat-Tam spoke to Rhondat, the first warrior. "You are far stronger than me. Let me carry the shield and guard you, and you take your greatest club and smite the foe." And with a third bull, Harath the second shield bearer, they flanked Rhondat and guarded his sides and they went forth, Rhindat flailing the foe and driving them before him, until the plains held no more apes, and the people thrived and ate sweet fruit and stole the fire from the abandoned places of the apes and life was good.
It is said that back then the people were larger and stronger, but now we are smarter and more agile, our trunks able to perform feats the great warriors could only have dreamed off. And we were blessed by the spirits with ideas and the telling of tales and the people multiplied.
What became of the apes you ask? They were driven to places the people did not go. The coast of the gerat salty seas, where they lived on mussels and fish and learned to ride the waves on rafts of wood, and sailed towards the islands in the sea, were the people could not follow in those times. There they build kingdoms and sailed the waves, to raid and trade with the daring, untill the sea rose adn drowned them.
Other fleed into the high mountains and the icy north north, slaying the gerat bears and wearing their pelt, becomming more carnivorous and stronger and fierce, master of fire and metall, only travelling forth to trade with the people for hard wood and fruits and feathers. So great was their mastery of fire it is said that they melted the great ice, uncovering vast swaths of land untill the melt filled the seas and drowned the isles of their sea-born kin.
But most terrible was the place of soft stone, where the apes learned to dig and ground out great mazes of tight caves, denying the bulls place to reach them. Ever delving deeper and deeper, untill their skin grew pale and their eyes grew huge and glowed in the dark like a cats. Creeping forth at night and laying herds in their sleep, they became a terror of the dark places, goblins of the night. They dug untill they found the black stone, burning it untill the smoke casta pall over the land and the trees grew sickly under their domain, untill they smelted ore in the ehat of their kilns and forged cruels weapons of iron to bring war over the people. Thus the age of strife and heroes was born, and the deeds were many and the innovations of the people without count, building the foundations of our civilizations as we strove to dig them trodlodytes out of their fastness, digging faster than their multitude.
We learned the way of metals from the polar apes, who kept the peace and abhorred their delving kin who turned even upon them. We learned how to form armies and build walls and fortresses and catapults, how write down our thoughts adn spread ideas, how to govern and organize.
The tales to be toled are many, too many to tell you now.
And if not for the people spreading all over the world and gathering its riches, we may not have prevailed over the place of soft stone. Only with alchemy and gun powder the people finally managed to overcome the mazes of stone and poisons and fires wich guarded the fell place, and trample down the troglodytes.
By that time we had cities and states and cast our gaze to the stars... but how we reached them is another story, and is more ancient history than legend.
(Inspired by having elephants use tools, be a little smaller and the stone age cavern cities on turkey. Hmmm... allmost souds like a setting oen could expound more upon there.. even ore-starfire. The pachyderms are not rigellians, they were not traumatized into genocidal mania by their experience, as thy in the end aranged themselves at elast with a part of the humanoinds wich they share their world with, but it gives a legend and soem colour to their background for future storytelling.
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(Further edited to mention the manipulator helpers which cover a blatant weakness of the racial physology.)
