elk. moose. large...deer. thing.

J ran D&D for us Sunday, and it was awesome. Instead of playing my dynamic duo of Sneaky McStabStab (J created and named him for me eons ago) and the cat-humanoid Fluffy the Disdainful, I am playing my chipper, optimistic, trusting little Gnome Druid, Edda. Druids can cast spells and whatever, but much of their utility on an adventure is an ability to "Wild Shape" into an animal. You keep all your intelligence and abilities, but you stack on the abilities of the animal. The animal takes damage instead of you, so you can be doubling your hit points in a combat.

It's worth going through the Monster Manual to find just the right animal for a situation, and when it came time to fight the Big Bad—some sort of demigod-ish evil tree sorcerer thing—I looked at the map and decided I needed to get there fast, and just be what gaming calls a "tank." Charge in, do a bunch of damage, absorb a bunch of damage.

I turned the page to the Giant Elk.

I have spent basically none of my life learning anything about elk—just a vague understanding of wild-ungulate problems around the world. I had the wrong image of an elk, because the Continental-Germanic word for "moose" (Alces alces, which the Continent has, unlike elk, Cervus canadensis, which it does not) is commonly a variation on "elk" (e.g. Swedish älg). I figured the Europeans who invaded North America said "that's sort of like a moose" and couldn't be fucked to learn anything like the indigenous word for them, wapiti.

But, says Wikipedia, English-speakers didn't really know what moose were:

By the 17th century, Alces alces (called "elk" in Europe) had long been extirpated from the British Isles, and the meaning of the word "elk" to English-speakers became rather vague, acquiring a meaning similar to "large deer".

It occurred to me to look up the French terms, them being the other major invader of North America. They call an elk wapiti. Their word for moose is apparently élan, which also means "momentum, impetus, burst," demonstrating that they were indeed familiar with moose.

Just this once I will cut the colonizers some slack, because if you have a word for "unspecified large deer" available, this is a Very Large Fucking Deer. I had been envisioning the relatively benign and rounded moose antlers, but no, elk antlers will straight-up impale you in a half dozen places.

In D&D, a Giant Elk can move 60' in a combat round, compared to my character's Gnomish 25'. It takes up a 15' square on the map. The horns get there 10' before the rest of it. With a running start, it does extra damage, and can knock the target down on the ground, where they can be conveniently stomped on.

Evil Sorcerer Guy's torso fell off the evil tree onto the ground. Honor's owl-humanoid was able to glide over to my antlers, then get the extra damage attacking from above. Evil Sorcerer Guy exploded, but the Giant Elk form took the damage.

Because Edda can be a Giant Elk for 6 hours at a stretch and only needs an hour to recharge, the fastest and funniest way to get back to town was to have her Giant Elk just...carry everybody. Quickly.

I would be remiss if I did not also suggest reading the verified classic, Dogs In Elk.