Giraffe & Stag

Okay, we’re done with giant animals!  (And it didn't take us six weeks this go-round.)  So come on, alphabet, deliver us some real monsters.  Monsters like the fearsome…

Giraffe.

Actually, holy crap—the giraffe is CR 3.  Do not be messing with the giraffe.  And the stag is all pointy.  Who knew herd animals were bona fide monsters?  Better stick to spearing kobolds.

A right of passage for cold-water-dwelling sahuagin is to retrieve the rack of a stag, braving the dangers of the surface world to do so.  When heavily armored adventurers stumble across a stag in the forest, the already-wounded creature mistakes them for its sahuagin pursuers and attacks.

A crooked caravan guide douses an adventurer’s pack in male giraffe urine, prompting an old bull giraffe to mistake him for a young rival and slam the adventurer off his mount.

Not all adventuring bands are formed at the behest of a hooded stranger in a tavern.  When the villagers of Wren discover their town’s horn dance costumes have been stolen, they send some of their own to get six new sets of caribou antlers before the midwinter ritual takes place.  Since caribou are rare in these parts, this involves a long journey that may involve unforeseen dangers.  Of course, if the fledgling adventurers happen to find the stolen set of horns, all the better…but who would gain from disrupting a harmless hunting ritual left over from another age?

—Pathfinder Bestiary 4 150

“Hey, did you hear that?  Sounds like a giraffe is dying over there.”

I don't go see the Washington Christmas Revels every year, but when I do I love seeing their take on the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance.  Here’s a similar version if you want to show this slightly goofy but wonderfully haunting dance at the gaming table.

Eagle-eyed readers will note that the name Wren is a reference to another mummering tradition.

My friend Ruby’s guitar was on the new Dan Deacon album.  Not her, just her guitar.  Which makes me wonder what my instruments get up to when I’m not around.  But you can hear her guitar here on NPR.