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View Full Version : What does a Half-Minotaur look like?



(Un)Inspired
2015-04-05, 01:49 AM
So a Minotaur is half man and half bull right? They're typically portrayed as beefy looking dude with a bull's head and hairy bodies(sometimes with cow hooves for feet).

What about a half- Minotaur? We're looking at something that should be roughly 1/4 cow right?

How do you picture them? How do they appear( if at all) in campaigns you've played in?

Should they be burly blokes with extra body hair and bull horns? Should they still have a very bovine face?

I admit that whenever I hear the template mentioned( it's a pretty good template for a melee fellow) I just instinctively picture a full Minotaur. This is probably incorrect though right?

Karl Aegis
2015-04-05, 01:53 AM
I would just default to the character Taurus from the television show Fairy Tail.

hamishspence
2015-04-05, 02:08 AM
So a Minotaur is half man and half bull right? They're typically portrayed as beefy looking dude with a bull's head and hairy bodies(sometimes with cow hooves for feet).

What about a half- Minotaur? We're looking at something that should be roughly 1/4 cow right?

How do you picture them? How do they appear( if at all) in campaigns you've played in?

Should they be burly blokes with extra body hair and bull horns? Should they still have a very bovine face?

I admit that whenever I hear the template mentioned( it's a pretty good template for a melee fellow) I just instinctively picture a full Minotaur. This is probably incorrect though right?

There is considerable variance in D&D Minotaur art - some is much more "bull-like" - some more humanlike.

Dragon Magazine 313's pic of the half-minotaur is more "bull-like" than some full-minotaur pics in other works. Has extended snout, at least (and horns and hair).

Dysart
2015-04-05, 02:09 AM
As a half-breed usually they have one or more defining features of both parent races.

So half minotaur for me would mean cloven feat, or bovine face or possibly even just horns.

If it was me building the character for myself though I'd say that they just have skin that looks like cow hide, thick and leathery but otherwise look human (or parent race).

Inevitability
2015-04-05, 03:04 AM
I'd depict them as humans with heavy body hair, two horns about one third the size of a minotaur's, and a face slightly shaped like that of a bull (low nose, narrow).

KillingAScarab
2015-04-05, 06:42 AM
Unearthed Arcana had an illustration by Scott Prescott featuring a human with the minotaur bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm). The character has stubs for horns and has thick long fingernails, but otherwise looks like a wide-shouldered, tall and hairy human. Minotaur bloodline is only a minor one, so I would imagine a half-minotaur to look hairier and have longer horns, at least. Looking at the mechanics for the template, it should definitely have a thicker skin from the natural armor and the STR could be represented by a larger frame. The +2 WIS, scent and darkvision don't have to be, but could result from more animalistic ears and nose. The eyes may also be of special consideration.

I haven't seen too many depictions of minotaurs in 3.x, but in 4th edition minotaurs are a PC race, and the illustrations seem to depict them with round pupils. If you want something more animal like to be passed onto a half-minotaur, cattle have slit pupils which are horizontally oriented. Then again, minotaurs are considered somewhat predatory, and the only predators I can think of with horizontal slit pupils instead of vertical slit pupils are cephalopods. I think a case can be made for any of these three options for pupils, with either of the slit pupil options reasonable in a campaign where the full-blooded minotaurs are heavily involved with Baphomet.