The Lifestyle of a Minotaur

As world builders and even as game masters, we have to control and role-play some pretty kooky monsters.  OK, so you are not likely to “role-play” some sentient ooze, but you might have to.  When world building something that feels like it might be like us but really isn’t this can get very hard.  Take for example - minotaurs.

Minotaurs are people, right?  So they’re just like us, right?  Yeah, probably not.  Admittedly, I don’t know any minotaurs.  My best friend is not a minotaur, but there are somethings we should be able to figure out.

Minotaurs are big and strong.  Probably not too nimble, but not klutzy either.  They may not be as smart as humans are, but they aren’t complete morons either.  OK, so how do they live?

 Normally we wait until the end to tell you why this matters, but we’re going to stuff it in here.  Why do you care how a minotaur lives?  Because if minotaurs are only creatures that appear in the middle of mazes or lost in dungeons somewhere, it doesn’t matter to you.  But if you are trying to build a fantasy world, then the minotaurs have to come from somewhere.  Will your player characters ever encounter a minotaur village?  If not, why not?  Do minotaurs breed?  I assume it’s possible that every minotaur is actually an alchemical creation, but that’s not how most worlds see them.

 So assuming they come from somewhere, there will always be a chance that the party will go to that somewhere.  And if they do, what’s it like?  If it absolutely sucks, then you know why minotaurs are more likely to be wandering the world all alone and are easily hired or captured by bad guys.  If it is a lush, wonderful place, then why do they always seem so mean?  Is it because they want to get back there?  Is there a distant island so getting back is really tough?  If your evil priest enemy guy has hired a minotaur as a bodyguard, how easily can the party bribe the minotaur to go away?  Knowing this other stuff helps you figure that out.

 I know a few things about the minotaurs on Fletnern:  They originally came from Koaluckssie, a distant continent.  They were captured, enslaved and brought to Drentae, but eventually they were (as a people) freed.  So now what?

 One of the big questions, is How cow-like are they?  Are they herbivores?  I can’t stomach that.  (sorry)  Are they carnivores?  That seems close, but ... I’ve made them omnivores, BUT!  They prize physical strength, that seems right, so they pursue physical strength, and that takes a lot of proteins.  So while they are omnivorous, they focus on proteins. 

Back to how cow-like are they?  Do they feel an affinity for cows?  Most humans see eating apes as creepy and disgusting.  We don’t really see ourselves as apes (most of us don’t) but that feels way to close to cannibalism.  Is it the same for minotaurs?  Yes and no.  Minotaurs do feel a little creepy about eating cattle, but they justify it by saying that they respect steers and horses for their strength and feel animals that are eaten should not be as noble as the steers and equines.  So culturally, no cattle ranches for the minotaurs, but they will still enjoy pork, poultry and fish.

Where most of the minotaurs live in Fletnern now is a coastal region hemmed in by forests.  Minotaurs don’t strike me as the hunters of the woods (especially when the satyrs are right there too).  But, put those massive muscles to work on a fishing net, and the minotaurs could be hauling in an ample supply of fish from the sea, small lakes and some rivers.  They are bigger than humans, so they must eat more than humans, and if they are not farming, then they need to provide food somehow.  This seems to work.

 Alter that question a bit and How smart are they?  While there must be some manner of priests or shaman or something, they aren’t highly magical.  Again, they respect physical strength, so smarts aren’t as important.  But they aren’t dumb goons either, at least not in their homeland.  So while I’m not putting in any universities (magical or otherwise), they do need to have some industry.  Industries that rely on physical labor are things like mining.  But now we have a real issue that I believe will separate the game worlds:  Are minotaurs lovers of nature or just folks willing to exploit their environment?

 In Fletnern, they are not nature lovers.  This matters a lot, because minotaur miners seem more like the strip mining types; they just wouldn’t easily fit into underground mines.  But strip mining, logging, similar labor professions don’t normally go hand in hand with the nature lovers.  So at least in Fletnern, they’re happy to rip some minerals out of the ground.

OK, so they eat a lot, mostly fish, but also other proteins like nuts, pork and some other meats.  Those not providing food can be miners, stone workers, lumberjacks, lots of stuff that could give them exports to trade for some things they don’t produce.  But what about them, their families, their homes?

Well, if they are logging and cutting stone, then they should be living in some solidly built homes; homes as tough as they are.  No tepees or thatched huts here.  Admittedly, not all of this has been figured out for Fletnern, so I’m just going to leave you with some questions you can determine for your own minotaurs:  Are they monogamous or do they live in harems?  This could be why many male minotaurs go off to other cultures, but not so many of the females.  Do the fathers stay with their baby-mamas or do they leave the women folk to raise the kids on their own?  This again goes towards how cow-like are they.

 Do they wear clothing?  If so what?  I mean, trying to put a shirt on a minotaur would be expensive, because that’s a lot of real-estate.  We’ve seen a lot of movie minotaurs that decorate themselves.  Do minotaurs go in for tattoos?  ritual brandings?  scrimshawing their horns while they are still attached?  Are there certain things they won’t do because they resemble cattle?  Like would they refuse to pull a plow or a wagon?  Do they grow beards?  Can they or do they shave?  I mean goats grow beards, but cattle don’t (said by a kid who grew up in Chicago and has no idea how to raise any animal!).

Summing up again:  This stuff does matter.  If minotaur culture is such that the mother raises the kids alone, that changes who the minotaurs met in the outside world are going to be like and may justify certain personalities.  Assuming there are no minotaur military academies, then again, we’ve justified why they are axe users and not more disciplined soldiers.

 If someone (good guy or bad guy) goes to a minotaur village looking to recruit some mercenaries, we now know that there are going to be sturdy stone and wood homes.  The females will probably be acting as most females (in a fantasy era) do:  raising children, tending to the home, preparing meals, etc.  (That is NOT sexism, it is a historic fact used to justify a fantasy world.)  There are fewer young men around because the older adult men have chased off some of the younger guys to avoid having to compete for their harems.

You could just as easily have had your minotaurs living on the plains in tepees where their main resource is the buffalo they hunt.  There’s nothing wrong with that, but clearly knowing whether the minotaurs live in stone houses or in tepees is going to matter if you plan to have the party attack them in your campaign.  This is why, even when your game is focused on combat, you still need to do some world building.

This post was written as part of The Centaur Warlord of Lockney and Other Tales of the Beast Men aka All About Centaurs, the latest in our Small Bites editions.  Each Small Bites book looks deeply at one subject, a character archetype, a race/monster, a style of questing, or some other role-playing/world building subject.  This one details all sorts of centaur cultures, including the centaur warlords who have been running slaves.

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