Elephant tusk

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An elephant tusk is an item obtained from butchering an elephant. Tusks can be sold to exotic goods traders, or used as a melee weapon.

Acquisition

Butchering an adult male elephant will yield two elephant tusks, unless the parts have been destroyed by damage. Female elephants do not drop tusks, despite both having a tusk attack and their texture showing tusks. Only a full adult elephant will produce tusks when butchered. All wild elephants spawn as adults.

They can also be purchased from traders.

Summary

Elephant tusks function identically to any other melee weapon, despite their unorthodox method of production. They do not have a quality value - all elephant tusks are statistically identical.

Analysis

An elephant tusk is a decent, early choice for melee weapon. It requires no crafting and has no quality, so isn't reliant on having skilled pawns nor does it consume resources. While it has a modest DPS, its AP is fairly high for the early game. It thus an effective choice until Smithing is researched and better melee weapons become available, and can be effective for longer if materials and/or skilled crafters are lacking. The primary difficulty comes in killing an elephant in the early game, but the hardy leather and large amount of meat make it a valuable feat if it can be accomplished.

After the early game, tusks are out-competed by more effective melee weapons, but they are still a nice freebie that adds to the value in preferentially hunting and/or slaughtering elephants over other big game.

Taming vs hunting

Hunting elephants may be faster but can prove difficult or prohibitively dangerous, especially when herds turn manhunter. As elephants have a 0% manhunting chance on a failed taming attempt, taming them for slaughter has no risk beyond lost pawn time and a small amount of food, while also providing several additional advantages. Slaughtering a tamed elephant will still produce both tusks, along with significantly more meat and leather. Taming elephants requires an Animals skill of 7.

Attack table

Feature	Toggle
Attacks

Elephant tusk		Point (Stab)					Point (Scratch)					Base (Blunt)					Human: Left & rigth fist (Blunt)					HP	Value
DPS^[1]	AP^[1]	Dam.	Cool.	AP	DPS	Chance^[2]	Dam.	Cool.	AP	DPS	Chance^[2]	Dam.	Cool.	AP	DPS	Chance^[2]	Dam.	Cool.	AP	DPS	Chance^[2]	HP	Value
6.44	23.33%	18.2	2.6s	27%	7	37.5%	18.2	2.6s	27%	7	37.5%	9	2s	13%	4.5	8.33%	8.2	2s	12%	4.1	2× 8.33%	150	80

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Note: This is the actual base average derived from the melee verb system updated in 1.1.2610, it may sometimes disagree with the listed value in the in-game infobox.
It may also change depending on the stats and the melee verbs available to the wielder if the weapon is wielded by some other than a baseline human.
↑ Chance for attack to be selected, assuming the weapon is wielded by a baseline human. It may change depending on the melee verbs available to the wielder