Minotaur

The minotaurs, somtimes called "Tauren", are an evil race of bull-people, or cow-people in the case of their women, created intentionally by the focused power of sartek. the men have the heads, legs, and fur of bulls but the mid section of a man.

Culture

Minotaurs are the favored servants of sartek. and any party that wishes to face sartek will have to get though the entire minotaur race in order to do so. minotaurs worship him as their god and have built mighty cities around him deep in the realm of war

Minotaurs are fierce barbarian warriors who take great pleasure in victory in fair combat and will never do anything cowardly like throwing sand into an enemies eyes and are brave, never retreating unless blatantly outmatched. they also make great commanders due to their strategic cunning in trap placement, lookouts, army makeup, etc. most large dungeons will have a mini-boss commander in the form of a minotaur or 2.

unlike the other lords that grant their subjects power should they worship them sartek does not have power to spare due to needing to keep himself alive as an enormous sentient skull. so instead he grants his subjects power via the various spirits that have pledged their loyalty to sartek. these spirits grant power to the shamans of sartek

sartek made the minotaurs much like himself, they are naturally cautious so are difficult to surprise and are accustomed to labyrinths so cannot get lost no matter how powerful the magic is thats trying to make them that way. they take advantage of this by making all of their buildings contain small or even large labyrinths inside

minotaur women, referred to as Holstaurus, look drastically different then the men. presumably due to a mother-fetish that sartek had their woman are alot more human in appearance. they have the horns, ears, legs, and tail of a cow but their mid-section and head are both human. in addition they make for terrible soldiers, being only slightly better then human women in combat. because of which they make for popular slaves when a minotaur village is raided.

minotaurs are not evil by nature but due to their master being sartek they as a race are. minotaurs that are raised outside the influence of sartek and do not worship him are normally neutral

History

the minotaurs were the race that lead all the other races from the realm of war south to to the realm of death. to lay siege to lord banes citadel after he had ripped sartek asunder for his betrayal during the war against the high elves, after decades of endless combat an exasperated lord bane came out onto his wall and tossed the enormous skull of the dead sartek at them telling them "there! now piss off!" after returning to the realm of war and sacrificing many lives they were able to revive sartek as a sentient but immobile skull.

it is said that one of the heros in the adventurer party that fought Kforpalulu when he first claimed to be the fifth lord was a friendly minotaur.