Whence unicorns?
I have a story in a mediaeval setting with no magic. There are elves, but they are essentially just absurdly long-lived versions of humans with pointy ears and somewhat more acute senses.
Unicorns are central to the story. They are roughly horse-shaped, though there is no need for them to be equids—in fact, I'm toying with the idea to give them cloven hooves. Naturally, they have long, fluffy hair and elegant spiral horns. I see no issues with any of that.
The problem is, they are fiendishly intelligent, on a par with people. That, too, is key to the story, but I just can't convince myself that animals that can't use tools and live fairly standard ruminant lives would evolve this kind of intelligence. Show me that I'm wrong, won't you?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/128917. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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If they aren't necessarily equine, and can have things like cloven hooves, why not have prehensile hooves?
Prehensile hooves don't exist in the real world, as far as I know, but then, neither do unicorns. The moveable parts can be the actual hooves, or soft portions protected by the hooves as they walk, or a combination.
That being said, if elephants can be very social and intelligent, despite the inability to create or manipulate a lot of tools (sure, a fair bit with their trunks, but not much else)...and if marine mammals such as whales can also be intelligent, why not unicorns? Maybe an ability to really manipulate (or even create) tools will put them above the intelligent animals without that ability.
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