Minotaur
The minotaur, also known as sarangay1 or astarion2, is a sentient, hybrid species of monstrous ancestry with the combined features of a mortal and a bovid. Born from the fallen blood of the forged god Oheilion during the final battles of War of the Dawn, minotaur are spiritually connected to the goblinoid and orcish lineages. Minotaur are quite rare compared to these other sentient species, with scattered populations located in pockets of Auloa and Hakoa. They are closely related to the yikaria, an isolated subspecies of the same monstrous lineage that has grown ideologically and genetically distinct from their progenitor lineage. Today, most mortal cultures have little understanding of minotaur and fear them as a dangerous race of hate-born beastfolk.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Unlike the other lineages that can claim the Blood of Oheilion, minotaur appear to be in many ways a hybrid species. Their heads and tails are almost identical to that of many species of bovids, such as the water buffalo or aurochs. Their more mortal features include their chests, arms, legs, and reproductive organs. Minotaur prefer to stand in an upright, with a slight, stooped gait to balance out their heavy upper body weight. Their legs bend backwards like most quadrapedal herbivores, which gives them a bounding gate when standing upright. Minotaur feet end in two, thick hooves similar to most other bovine creatures.
Many sources and accounts claim that minotaur have human-like hands with five digits, including a thumb, which all end in nails. However, this trait appears to be very rare and actually the result of interbreeding between minotaur and humans. In fact, the only extant population of minotaur that have consistent articulated digits are the yikaria, a minotaur subspecies. True minotaur instead have three digit hands, with their two fingers ending in thick keratinous cloven hooves, similar to those found on a bovid's feet.
Minotaur are some of the largest intelligent non-giantkin bipeds in Holos. Male minotaur can grow to over ten feet tall and weigh as much as four hundred pounds. Minotaur do exhibit sexual dimorphism, with females reaching around eight and a half feet and three hundred and fifty pounds. Yikaria have less sexual dimorphism and are slightly smaller than the largest of their male minotaur counterparts.
Both male and female minotaur grow horns. These horns are made of keratin and vary in size and shape depending on the population. While few minotaur cling to the tradition of locking horns to determine mates, many do still use them in battle. This is particularly useful in taking on smaller opponents, such as most mortals, as a single goring from an adult minotaur is almost always a lethal blow.
Genetics and Reproduction
Minotaur reproduce sexually and come of age shortly after reaching adulthood. After mating, female minotaur gestate for a period of twelve to thirteen months before giving live birth. Minotaur births are actually quite dangerous and the species has a high maternal mortality rate. Upon giving birth, female minotaur nurse their young for a period of about five months. Infant minotaur grow rapidly, and able to walk on their own after just seven months.
Minotaur can interbreed with humans and orcs, however only female minotaur can successfully conceive and bear children through this union. Male minotaur that impregnate mortal women often unintentionally kill the mothers during their gestation period. Children born of these unions appear to be minotaur in almost every way, though there is the odd predisposition to gain human-like five digit hands instead of the minotaur's ancestral three-digit hooves.
Growth Rate & Stages
Minotaur infants grow rapidly, weaning off their mother's milk after five months and able to run after just seven. By their third year, young minotaur enter adolescence and by their tenth, they are nearly fully grown adults. Minotaur are born with small horns and their horns continue to grow throughout the course of their life. Both female and male minotaur lose reproductive capabilities shortly before death. Most minotaur live a maximum of five decades, but most die well before that.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Like most bovine creatures, minotaur are herbivorous and are most comfortable consuming low-nutrient plant matter, such as grasses and leaves. Their mouths are designed to grind up large amounts of fibrous plant material using their muscular tongue and thick, shearing molars. And like other ruminants, minotaur have four chambered stomachs which help process the low-nutrient loads found in most fibrous plants.
Interestingly, brain development in minotaur varies dramatically based on their diet. Individuals that purely ruminant diet (i.e. consuming exclusively bovine staples such as grass or leaves) typically cap their cognitive capabilities are around that of an ogre or a seven year old human. While other intelligent species can also hinder their brain development without proper nutrition, minotaur are one of the few creatures whose anatomical predisposition towards a particular diet limits their cognitive development. By increasing a minotaur's intact of vitamins and minerals found in fruit, nuts, and meats, minotaur can actually achieve similar cognitive functions to most intelligent mortals.
However, minotaur that completely replace their grass-based diet with foods high in protein—particularly legumes and red meats—suffer from a different yet equally debilitating condition. Several accounts of minotaur communities that have adopted carnivorous diets claim that these minotaur slowly went mad, their inherent destructive tendencies magnified by their flesh-based foods. These minotaur have become famous in the mortal imagination as unhinged man-eaters overwhelmed with bloodlust and ravenous hatred. Today, such societies are almost unheard of as most of them have either been eradicated or driven underground.
Additional Information
Average Intelligence
Due to the size and shape of their skulls, minotaur brains are comparably much smaller than many other intelligent creatures. The divine nature of their species conception mitigates this to an extent, allowing the base intelligence of a minotaur to be that of an ogre or similar creature. This has led most mortals to believe minotaur to be universally dull or dimwitted creatures. However, minotaur intelligence is more closely tied to their diets than other lineages. A varied diet which combines the bovine staples of grasses and leaves with fruits, vegetables, nuts, and some meats can elevate minotaur cognition to that of most other sentient species.
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Minotaur have excellent vision, allowing them to see in dim light as if it were day light. In total darkness, they can see up to 60 ft. as if it were dim light, though in these conditions they can only make out shapes and movement, not color.
One of the most remarkable things about minotaur is their sense of direction. It is said that a minotaur can never get lost and indeed, they seem to be able to always discern exactly the way they've traveled. Even blindfolding or depriving a minotaur of their senses does not seem to impede this ability. As a result, many minotaur communities build their structures to be intentionally confusing or labyrinthine as defensive measure against outsiders.
Civilization and Culture
History
Legend tells of the first minotaur appearing during the final battles of the War of the Dawn. With the awakening of the Dread Dragoness, Valdra, the gods of the Heavenly Council grew concerned that none of their abilities were enough to destroy the Great Old One that threatened to destroy their precious creation. Together, they convened in secret at the far plane known as the Fields of Maurenchali, while the youngest of their number, the war goddess Ezrahil, held the Dread Dragoness's attention. There, the Council combined their energies to forge a deity unlike any other, a mighty soldier with the strength, stamina, and unending resolve to end the Great Old One's rampage. This was Oheilion, the Bloodied Lord. The gods informed their creation of his task. Oheilion said nothing, only lifted his sunforged greatsword, Lastspasm, and set out for the Material Plane with grim determination.
In a tattered stretch of land known today as the Mashiq, Oheilion met Valdra for the first time. Their first duel nearly ended Oheilion, with the heat of the battle so intense that his sweat fell and pooled into the noxious fumes that form the Sulfur Sea. Three times, Valdra's fangs tore Oheilion's flesh and the Bloodied Lord was born. With the first wound, Oheilion felt fear and from his blood spawned the goblin, a people of fear. With the second wound, Oheilion felt anger and from his blood spawned the orc, a people of anger. And with the third wound, Oheilion felt hate and from his blood spawned the minotaur, a people of hate.
Still, in that moment, the Dread Dragoness proved to dangerous a foe for Oheilion. The Bloodied Lord was forced to retreat into the continent's interior. After meeting with the young dragon god Kōs, Oheilion returned to face Valdra. Alongside his new allies, Oheilion defeated Valdra but unable to slay the Great Old One, Oheilion called forth the wisdom of the Heavenly Council and the Ordning gods, who granted him the strength to lift the surface of the Material Plane and bury Valdra deep beneath it. With that, the Great Old One was vanquished and left to churn within her Underdark. To this day, she remains trapped in utter darkness until the Era of Twilight; when she shall return and bring about a final end of all things.
Though ultimately victorious, the gods of the Heavenly Council now looked upon their bloodied creation with trepidation. They feared his anger and hatred and they worried that he would do the same to them should he be granted the powers of the Celestial Mountains. So the Heavenly Council banished Oheilion and sent him back to the realm from which he was made, the charred Fields of Maurenchali.
Cut off from their progenitor and without the promise of a place in the afterlife, the Blood of Oheilion rebelled. Little is known of this conflict or its battles, only that it was known as the War of Broken Days. Their legions put all the realm to flame, promising to leave it as ruined and broken as their creator's prison.
Only after the goddess Lacorré embraced Oheilion did the Bloodied Lord agree to treat with his captors. They agreed that Oheilion's progeny would be granted the same considerations as the elder mortals, in spite of their violent birth. In exchange, Oheilion would remain in Maurenchali to await the return of Valdra. There he sits on his iron throne, surrounded by baleful attendants as he sharpens Lastspasm and polishes Deathgasp. Many of those minotaur who followed the wisdom of Oheilion still pray to the Bloodied Lord and believe that he will speak for them upon their Judgement.
Some minotaur refused to accept defeat. They had grown strong in their hatred of the other mortal races and learned much about the darkest secrets of the Old Magic. Though they yearned to continue to burn, pillage, and kill, their leader urged patience and gathered their loyal followers into a great horde. Together, these minotaur fled deep into the hidden valleys in the highest mountains in Iroa.
Here, in the land that would one day be called Rhalpalkan , the yikaria were born. A minotaur people of unrivaled intelligence and unimaginable cruelty, the yikaria pledged themselves to the Unspoken goddess of power and deception, the Kiss of Lies. To this day, the yikaria remain sheltered in their utopian vales, plotting the destruction of their cowering creator and the subjugation of all mortal life.
Despite the Lover's Concordant, many minotaur who adhered to the will of the Heavenly Council did not find peace in the following centuries. At first, the minotaur were welcomed into the ranks of the Great House of Temekan. They went on to serve both sides in the Reckoning of Temekan, but in the wake of the Exile Arcana, many mortals considered them an abominable people. During the Palladian Era, the Palladian Empire drew on yikaria fearmongering and religious zealotry to legalize the enslavement of the minotaur. Their homelands in Kanesh and Placidia were taken from them and transformed into massive plantations and country estates for the elite. Those that escaped into the Bashari Timberlands or fought back in the many Auloan wars were branded as criminals and man-eaters.
Only with the Sundering Arcana and the collapse of the Empire could minotaur find freedom among the mortal states. Yet, even after casting off their shackles, most minotaur found themselves in a world that still feared them. Their numbers had been massively reduced and most lived scattered in wild pockets of Palladian ruins and overgrown woodland. Today, the minotaur are still a sight to behold in much of Auloa and Nioa while in Iroa, the scourge of the yikaria casts terror and suspicion over any minotaur who travel there. Only in Hakoa, where they have fully integrated into the city states of Ulukanda and the nomadic herdsfolk of the great savannah, do the minotaur stand proud and equal to the mortal ancestries.
Footnotes
1 Minotaur are called sarangay in Vardindur and its adjoining archipelago.2 Minotaur are called asterion in much of eastern Hakoa.
Genetic Descendants
Origin/Ancestry
Blood of Oheilion (Minotaur)
Lifespan
50 years
Average Height
Males: >3 m (>10 ft.)
Females: 2.6 m (8.5 ft.)
Average Weight
Males: 181 kg (400 lbs.)
Females: 155 kg (340 lbs.)
Related Ethnicities
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