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The replacement of the knights with elks basically *had* to work, as would
the rook-elk swap [similar pieces in the same spot]. The replacement of
bishops by elks is a bit cludgier, but gives a hint of a theme. Replace
the bishops with elks and the queen with a chancellor (R+N). Give the king
a knight escape move instead of castling. Now you've got a bishopless game
that is fairly close to FIDE in power - if your elk valuation is correct,
within roughly a pawn's worth of power. [This might make for a decent
CWDA army.] It may not be the best of games, but it's a coherently themed
game, and showcases the elk equally as well as the FIDE version. You'd
offer your 'Elk Chess' as a training game for the elk, and a themed game
as the 'actual' variant. This way you're sneaking 2 games in under the
guise of 1, and you've done what you wanted. You showcased the piece, and
you got the alternate FIDE game into the mix. But you've also taken that
one step more and designed a game as well as a piece. I believe you
commented somewhere that you thought the elk and scorpion would work well
together. Come up with another new piece or three, [maybe the
squire/jumping general/mammoth could fit in] and give us a new game. Of
course, if I had some really cool new pieces that worked great in FIDE, I
wouldn't listen to some old guy who wants it done another way either. ;-)
Keep the pieces coming anyhow. Enjoy