Minotaur

Tall and powerful with a simplistic outlook on life that holds power in high regard, minotaurs were once a race of slaves that fought their way to freedom and swore to never again fall under the sway of another master. This absolute rejection of fealty to a distant power has made a city the largest social organisation possible for them to form.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Minotaurs are physically powerful beings that are muscled and bulky. Thick fur covers two mighty, bovine legs that end in large, cloven hooves and thins as it progresses over the human torso. Highly developed neck, shoulder and back muscles support the bull-like head and horns. While their eyes are more widely spaced than a humans they do not sit as far around the sides of the skull as a typical cow.

Never underestimate a minotaur

Strong, covered in a thin fur on the torso and a longer fur over the legs, thick horns and wide hooves even a dead minotaur cut an imposing figure.

Genetics and Reproduction

As with all mammals minotaurs reproduce sexually. They have a similar reproductive cycle to humans in that the females are able to reproduce twelve times a year; as they are a highly sexual culture this limitation does not prevent them from have sex more often than that.
Once a cow, the minotaur term for an adult female, becomes pregnant gestation will last for nine months. An infant minotaur, calf, is as helpless as a human baby and requires an equal amount of care. A calf will become an adolescent, females are heifers, males are bull calves, at ten. They are full adults, both physically and socially, by fifteen.

Dietary Needs and Habits

While a minotaur is capable of surviving on grains and grasses alone they are true omnivores and thrive best with a mixed diet. Minotaurs do not hold cattle in high regard like the centaurs do horses. As such they keep herds of cattle in the areas around their cities as a steady source of meat. All grains and plants are eaten raw and the meat is only lightly cooked; a steak that has been warmed through to the centre is considered the sign of a poor chef.
A calf will be breast fed by its mother or a wet-nurse, until it is five months old when it will be weaned onto a simplified version of an adult's diet before transitioning to an adult's diet by the time it is one to two years old.

Additional Information

Facial characteristics

All minotaurs have a forelock of hair that grows between their horns. How this is dealt with depends largely on the city and even the individual. This hair may be allowed to grow to the waist, braided, fastened with a tie or metal band or even cut short.
Bulls will sometimes allow their chin hair to grow into a beard. Whether this is attractive or not depends on the cow that it looking at it.

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Conflict is the only result of two minotaur cities being built in close proximity with each other as neither would suffer the insult of allowing the other to claim superiority of them. This has caused the minotaur race to spread more thinly across Faemonde with little, if any, interaction between the various cities that have been founded.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

While minotaurs have average smell they have a broad viewing angle and can see 360 degrees by turning their head in each direction. This combined with good hearing makes them very difficult to surprise.

Civilization and Culture

Major Organizations

See senate.

Beauty Ideals

Strength and solidness are what every minotaur strives to embody. Large and polished horns are a sign of a healthy minotaur.
Minotaurs do not believe in marring the body with tattoos. However, they will engrave their horns and adorn their hooves with metal shoes and caps. Those that wish to show off their wealth will have their horns inlaid with precious metals or even gemstones.

Gender Ideals

A bull will exercise for hours on end in order to develop the largest muscles possible. He will also take great care in polishing his horns and combing his fur. A dirty or unkempt male will have no chance of catching the eye of a cow, no matter how strong he is.
The ideal bull is tall and broad with no extra fat around his body. He should conduct himself with honour and discipline and at all times respect every cow that he is in the presence of.
Bulls are expected to earn a regular wage with which they will provide for their household. This is done either by owning a business or taking a position of employment at a business that is owned by another, some do both. Bulls will be the trade labourers in a city such as masons, blacksmiths, carpenters and like; no bull would be caught dead sitting at a desk, that is cow's work.
A cow will likewise spend hours in the pursuit of muscle development. While she will not be able to produce as much mass as a bull any cow worth pursuing will be fully capable of demonstrating her strength.
An ideal cow is shorter than the average bull, with slender shape and long legs. She will hold herself regally and conduct herself with decorum. However, if another offers her insult she is well within her rights to gore the offender with her horns or trample them with her hooves.
Cows are the business minds of a minotaur society. They handle the money that the bull brings in, purchase the goods required for a house, give the bull his allowance and run the clerical side of any business. Cows are also the ones that are the service providers in a city. They will be the waitresses at a tavern, the clerks in a store or the maid in a wealthy estate.

Relationship Ideals

Once a bull and cow decide to enter a mating agreement they will stay together until the next Year of the Hand. A mating agreement identifies what belongs to the bull and what belongs to the cow and how any items and wealth that is acquired during the agreement will be split when the agreement ends. There is no lenience for any sort of dalliance outside of a mating agreement. Being found guilty of such an offence is highly shameful and will result in the public removal of one's horns.

Average Technological Level

Minotaurs are passable engineers and mechanics and are fully capable of working through the majority of the problems that come with building and maintaining a city. Roads, aqueducts and rudimentary plumbing are all common things to this species. Things like steel, leather working and weaving are also common place.
However, they are not imaginative by nature so most of their problem solving methodologies are to repeat a previously proven solution. This has resulted in a phenomena where almost all minotaur cities having a similar design and infrastructure regardless of location.
Minotaurs have a distinct lack of art or decoration and no taste for magic whatsoever.

Common Dress Code

During everyday life bulls, bull calves and calves of either gender wear simple knee length, cloth tunics, belted at the waist. While children wear thin belts that are purely functional a bull calf would wear the widest belt that his parents would allow (3 inches at most). A bull will wear the widest belt that he can afford, sometimes requiring four or five buckles to secure it. The wealthiest may even purchase belts that require vertical slits at the top and bottom to allow for movement. This can be pushed too far though and attract unwanted attention as if one is trying to disguise a lack of muscle.
Cows and heifers wear vestitas. A similar concept applies to a cow's belt width though there is much less variation and a cow may abandon all pretense of wealth in the later stages of pregnancy and wear a child sized belt for comfort.
When dressed for battle minotaurs wear a leather cuirass covered in horizontal bands of steel that shift to an angle orientation to cover the shoulders paired with bracers on the arms and plate steel strapped to the front of the thighs and shins. Beneath the cuirass is a knee length, cloth tunic and a skirt of studded leather straps.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

Strength Competitions

Competitions to prove ones strength are common throughout minotaur culture. Sometimes impromptu competitions will pop up throughout the day like how many bricks a mason can pick up or who can lift a fully wagon so that its wheel could be repaired. Organized competitions are a mainstay for the annual festivals and a minotaur might find himself having to decide between watching a strength competition, a wrestling match or a boxing match.

Boxing and Wrestling

While every age and gender has a category in the strength competitions only bull calves and bulls are allowed to enter wrestling and boxing matches. These matches are governed by few rules and the referee is as likely to be injured as the competitors.
Wrestling has the gentler goal of moving one's opponent out of a rope ring that has been placed on the ground. A boxing competition only ends when one has rendered an opponent either unable or unwilling to get back on his hooves; since only a weakling does not regain his hooves most boughts end with one of the combatants being rendered unconcious or injured to the point of immobility. When bull calves enter the boxing ring they do so with padding wrapped around their knuckles. It is a right of passage for a bull calf to enter the bull ring with bare knuckles.
A wrestling champion will likely gain free drinks for the night and a few flirtatious looks from a cow or a heifer. However, a boxing champion holds a special place in society and commands instant respect. Such a bull will wear a pin on his clothing to mark his victor and may have multiple cows seeking to enter a mating agreement with him. If this bull agrees to all agreements the a herd agreement is written which lays down the statutes of all of their agreements with the bull. The largest herd in recorded history is ten though legend speaks of a boxer who entered a herd agreement with one hundred cows for three Years of the Hand in a row.

Voting Rings

See voting rings for more information.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Minotaurs keep to themselves in a way that is almost xenophobic. They will interact with other species in order to trade information or goods...or to utterly destroy them.

Lifespan

70 years

Average Height

Bull - 7 feet

Cow - 6 feet

Average Weight

Bull - 600 lbs

Cow - 500 lbs

Body Tint, Colouring and Marking

The most common colours are:

• black
• dark brown
• light brown

Less common colours are:

• red
• white
• tan

Colours that almost never occur are:

• brindle
• molted