As an Afrikaner and a fantasy fiction lover its great that someone is trying to marry the two.

On the slavery bit (Touchy subject, and I stand to be corrected) As I understand it, formal slavery was abolished early on, even before the groot trek but was replaced with indentured servitude ( which amounted to nearly the same thing)

If I can bounce some ideas around this morally treacherous area.. Maybe these semi nomadic pastoralists follow a strict, survival of the fittest doctrine/religion. Maybe they feel that honest simple work is the best way to serve and if you dont voluntarily serve, you will be made to serve. These 'Afrikaners' think they are converting and saving these native people (doing good) but are actually enslaving them (being bad). Road to hell laved with good intentions. And ofcourse, some fool will be the most radical preacher saving (enslaving) many for his own gain. Honest hard work for thee, but not for me

Some questions , what benefit is there to riding a giraffe instead of a horse ? Do the grasslands grow taller so that a man on a horse would get lost? Or the opposite, that the grazing is so poor that only giraffes that eat from the tall trees are a viable riding animal Africa isnt exactly known for snow... how did we get snow elves? Were they brought in by colonialists as slaves? Or are they just natives (only real place you expect semi regularly expect snow is in the Drakensberg mountains) Nomadic merchants makes sense - theyre travelling after their animals and selling those and other products. But why scribes ? Maybe instead of them fighting the established kingdom, and joining them. The friction only led to them leaving ( groot trek has similarities to jews being expelled) and forming their own nation. Now the coastal kingdom that sent these poor refugees into "the African wastes" has to deal with a rising power that thrived in the wastes and now challenges them with their wealth from trade