Eqep

Eqep (pronounced EH-kep) are a type of giraffe-like animal native to the Ilara Plateau in the Stormlands. They are commonly kept as herd animals by the people of Masin, many of whom rely on the creatures' wool, milk, and meat to survive.

Most adult eqep are around fifteen feet tall, but the largest can exceed twenty. They are covered in a thick wool, typically gray in color with almost metallic flecks of silver, that protects them well against the harsh, cold landscape of the plateau in which they live, where in many places the average yearly temperature is below freezing. Using their tall necks to their advantage, they feed from the tops of the hardy scrub trees that grow in the Ilara Plateau, some of the only vegetation that survives year-round.

Eqep have long been central to the livelihoods of many tribes of Masin. Especially in the north - in the colder south it is difficult for herds of eqep to find enough to eat - each band keeps a number of the creatures, carefully protecting them as they wander the windswept lands. Like they do with their own bodies, it is not uncommon for the Masin to apply lapis lazuli-derived pigments to their eqep, in designs that communicate their affiliation and personalities.

Eqep are believed by the Masin to feel sorrow especially strongly, and to be drawn towards sources of mourning to such a degree that bands and tribes usually first know of the death of someone close to them when their eqep rapidly change direction of travel to head towards a sky funeral.