Minotaurs

“In the Minotaur’s world it is far easier to kill and devour seven virgins year after year, their rattling bones rising at his feet like a sea of cracked ice, than to accept tenderness and return it.”

-- Steven Sherrill, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break





A bloodthirsty warrior charges a shield wall, horned head lowered as he bellows a contemptuous challenge. Proud raiders gamble aboard their ships, betting rich spoils in elaborate games and dares. A great beast stands tall within the temple of a mighty cult, worship and offerings heaped onto her broad shoulders.

Head of a Demon

Born into the world by forbidden rites that melded powerful horned beasts with the intelligence of civilized species, the race of minotaurs is proud and domineering, assured of their superiority over lesser, merely natural races.

A cult that performs such rituals raises its bestial champion as a caged totem, a monstrous weapon fed on the flesh of blasphemers. Yet minotaurs are seldom content to be merely a tool. Those who escape inevitably forge their own paths, even seek out others of their kind. From such stories are born the founding myths of horned half-beast kingdoms.

Yet minotaurs regard their natural drive as something to be mastered, a hunger that will consume them if they are weak. Only those who shackle their arrogance and ambition with a strict code can truly achieve greatness.

Arrogance and Honor

Minotaurs are blessed with supreme self-confidence, and raised to be deeply competitive. They seldom accept anything but a temporary loss, and even then make excuses.

Minotaur etiquette focuses on postponing or redirecting disputes, and most minotaurs love games, puzzles, and other trials. The imposition of rules is particularly appealing to minotaurs, serving to restrain and channel their temper.

Some bull-nations allow this element to go unspoken, but most outright proclaim that might means right, with open contests a foundation of their society.

Treachery is not necessarily unknown to minotaurs: a strict personal code of honour need not comply with any wider view of morality. Still, cheating or renenging on debts is considered deeply suspicious, a display of poor self-control that speaks ill of the bull's other abilities.

Bestial Urges

Minotaurs vary widely in appearance, incorporating features from a range of horned beasts into a humanoid form. Bovine creatures are by far the most common template, but hooves or feet, the number of fingers, and the presence of a muzzle all depend purely on the bloodline in question.

One common factor is a minotaur's violent temperament. In addition to a strict adherence to honour, each minotaur culture develops communal ways to bleed off this aggression. Berserk performances, passionate festivals, and eve simple pit fights. Others resort to hermitage and ritual, regarding bloodthirst as something to be ruled, not bled off.

Aloof, Not Alone

Minotaurs become adventurers for a variety of reasons, most of which boil down to having something to prove. Questants try to outdo their ancestors, young bulls are bound into unwise oaths, and behooved nobles venture forth to settle bets and dares. Those who break the mould tend to be mercenaries or missionaries, rejecting the brutish honour-code of their home for better or worse.

Firstborn minotaurs raised in the shrines of horned gods have less diverse attitudes. Some are loyal to their home, sent forth as agents of prophecy or revenge. The rest fled from holy captivity, escaping their labyrinth homes in search of something greater.

Minotaur Names

Minotaurs usually name their offspring after themselves, or a great hero in their ancestry, whose code the young minotaur must strive to honour. Clan names work similarly, inherited from whichever horned paragon first forged the bloc.

Minotaurs raised by a cult tend to take its name, or the name of its leader, in place of a family name. Those with an even bigger ego than normal (or less attachment to those who raised them) will take the name of its god, instead.

Male Names: Asterion, Beliminorgath, Cinmac, Dastrun, Edder, Galdar, Hecariverani, Kyris, Tosher, Zurgas

Female Names: Ayasha, Calina, Fliara, Helati, Keeli, Kyri, Mogara, Sekra, Tariki, Telia

Clan Names: Athak, Bregan, Entragath, Kaziganthi, Lagrangli, Mascun, Orilg, Sumarr, Teskos, Zhakan