Creature concept for the godverse, a somewhat slothlike proboscid (somewhere, a paleontologist is crying) native to the river valleys of the plant god in that valentine’s card. I don’t think these ever get fully domesticated, as they are too long-lived, dangerous, intelligent, and difficult to breed.

These elephants are somewhat panda-like in feeding behavior, in that they do sit down next to trees or vines and pull down branches and leaves with their hands and trunks. The bulls use the sharp thumbs, in addition to tusks, during that crazy elephant time when they’re made of testosterone and gotta fight other bulls to get some hot elephant booty in the end.

I swear I knew the actual elephant science term for this but I forgot it.

The fur-like covering on the individual in the top sketch is actually a layer of short parasitic grasses and mosses that grows on the elephants like barnacles on whales. The seeds are very small and airborne, and the grasses themselves usually do not do much damage to the animal* Parasitic flora (fruit-bearing** vines and grasses in particular)that puts down tiny tiny roots in the host’s bloodstream is very common around that particular area because the local god is a horrible bitter creature.


*and when they do, that’s an outcome of a violent immune response because some foreign organism sticking roots into your bloodstream makes the body go CODE RED CODE RED CODE RED INFECTION CODE RED, but that doesn’t usually happen because this is fantasy i do what i want.

**Bloodwine and ritual significance of parasitic vines among the lowland tribes will get their own thing in the future.