I.E. I hear of two mroe nations, one descended from Kass, and another on a different continent. So any more interesting tid bits as such.
thanks
On Taladas, there is the League of Minotaurs, who are the dominant power (as they should be!).
I would recommend reading the Richard A. Knaak books on minotaurs.
Books on Kaz the Minotaur:
The Legend of Huma
Kaz the Minotaur
Land of the Minotaurs
(There's a short story as well, but I can't remember where.)
Stand-alone:
Reavers of the Blood Sea
Minotaur Wars:
Night of Blood (in stores now)
Tides of Blood (2004)
Empire of Blood (2005?)
That's a very brief overview, but that should get you started.
taladas? i take it that's the other continent
Are there any other heroes beside Kass, that I should know about. Just for Quick reference.
I'm sure there are vilinous ones because there evil.
I'm very curious about the tribe that Kass founded because I'm thinking of being a good minotaur and that might be a good place to start off from.
Taladas IS another continent, but very few if any people on Ansalon(the main continent) even know about it. So its really not important unless your DM decides to take you there.
Oh I was wondering if there was a cultural equivalent Are they like vikings, or greeks. Do they seem to be modelled after any of those. Someone mentioned that they're a lot like Klingons, though I must admit I understand it somewhat, but I don't think it really relates.
So their super honorable. Do they have a code? Like a paladin type thing.
Because minotaurs tend towards law and have a militaristic bent, even the evil ones have a good deal of respect for the Solamnic Knights. As such, some have come to learn codes of honor as the humans look on honor. For most of them, honor can be equated with his personal reputation of being a great warrior. Things that have no bearing on a minotaur's martial prowess (such as the fate of a human villager trapped in a burning house) do not affect the minotaur's honor, and thus he could care less.
Originally posted by AmbiguityX
okay its Kaz, well, is Taladas the place where Kaz went.
Oh I was wondering if there was a cultural equivalent Are they like vikings, or greeks. Do they seem to be modelled after any of those. Someone mentioned that they're a lot like Klingons, though I must admit I understand it somewhat, but I don't think it really relates.
So their super honorable. Do they have a code? Like a paladin type thing.
Kaz and his descendants and followers founded the realm of the Kazelati on the Holokan Islands. The island chain consist of five main islands, the largest being half the size of the island of Mithas. The island chain is located somewhere east of the continent of Ansalon.
The Kazelati figure prominently in the aforementioned Reavers of the Blood Sea . There is also a short article on these predominantly good minotaurs in More Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home , published by Wizards of the Coast back in June, 2000.
Hope that helps.
I think a lot of this info will go over well with my character.
I'm a little more curious on how they percieve honor. Either the good or the evil minos. makes no difference. If there are any out there who understand the inner workings of the minotaur mind and social structural intereactional workings, please share.
Originally posted by AmbiguityX
I'm a little more curious on how they percieve honor. Either the good or the evil minos. makes no difference. If there are any out there who understand the inner workings of the minotaur mind and social structural intereactional workings, please share.
Think of them as Klingons with horns. Minotaur honor revolves around the application of personal strength, courage, willpower and skill. It isn't the same as knightly honor, for example, although minotaurs will respect and often admire heroic acts of great sacrifice or bravery carried out by human knights. Essentially, respecting one's opponent and not resorting to cheap, deceptive or cowardly tactics comprises most of the system of honor in minotaurs.
Remember, minotaurs believe they're the superior race. They feel they are the chosen ones, that might makes right, that cowards deserve what they get, that a show of strength is worth more than hours of rhetoric, and that loyalty to one's family and comrades-at-arms is a worthy trait. Note that not all minotaurs are honorable, in fact a lot of them are liars, cheats, and despicable individuals. Honor is a minotaur aspiration, not something hard-wired into them at birth.
Cheers,
Cam
Sort of charge down the middle type fighters, or do they plan. I just wonder what kinda leeway I have being a lawful minotaur when in comes to combat or social interactions.
Minotaurs fight with honour and intelligence in battle as a rule. So anyhting that a human trained in warfare a minotaur would certainly consider. Minotaurs aren't unintelligent brutes though they are surely ohysically powerful.
As was posted earlier they act alot like Klingons. All is fare in war but if they can help it they will keep it more straight forward not like the cowardly Romulans (Elves) that fight from the shadows and the such.
They dont wade into the middle of a battle field because they dont know any better. They do it because they CAN.
Might makes right.
To be weak is to be wrong.
There are other forms of Might besides physical strength and the Minotaurs recognize them as well. Great intelligence and wisdom can win a day when a plodding brute may falter. Minotaurs will respect a show of any type of might but it may be a tad difficult to get a Minotaur to see those qualities in one of the lesser races.
Sort of charge down the middle type fighters, or do they plan. I just wonder what kinda leeway I have being a lawful minotaur when in comes to combat or social interactions.
While minotaurs are not as smart individually as members of most other races, that doesn't mean they are dumb brutes who just charge into battle. While you will never catch an honorable minotaur using guerilla tactics or ranged attacks, he will also not blindly walk into a situation where he is at a major disadvantage. A minotaur will take into account things such as terrain & elevation, comparative threat posed by individual enemies such as spellcasters, and adjust tactics if he determines that simply bashing things with a great big axe isn't working. An honorable minotaur will not set traps or ambushes: the enemy is always met face-to-face on the field of battle. Any attempt to weaken an enemy before the minotaur has a chance to face him one-on-one is a great dishonor, because it implies the minotaur is afraid that he is weaker than his enemy.
What he WILL do, however, is go straight after the enemy that appears the most physically powerful in a fight, assuming he has backup to ensure that enemy archers or spellcasters won't whittle him down while doing so. He will also probably insist that he fight this enemy alone unless he is so dramatically outclassed that help would not be dishonorable (level 5 minotaur fighter vs ancient red dragon, etc). Single combat against a strong enemy is something that minotaurs live for.
When it comes to social interaction, minotaurs always consider themselves superior to a member of any other race. They will defer to the minotaur present who is known to be the greatest warrior. They will show a great deal of respect to non-minotaurs who are known for martial prowess, but will ultimately seek to overrule them if there is a disagreement. Minotaurs have absolutely no respect for anybody who is not a warrior: they won't even attempt to use courtesy or diplomacy on spellcasters, "dishonorable" fighters like archers, or commoners. They will frighten and intimidate such a person unless it becomes obvious that the tactic isn't working. This applies to non-combative minotaurs as well.
How about their team work. If they opt for single combat, would they totally ignore a flank. Where do they sacrifice tactics for personal glory.
He plays a 1st CG male minotaur fighter (8.0 feet height; STR 22,DEX 15,CON 18,INT 13, WIS 16,CHA 13;Hp 17) who quickly left his homeland because of his religious beliefs after the execution of his father (his family secretly worshiped Kiri-Jolith; his father was a high ranking military officer who was killed for his "heresy" and "treason" by the priests of Sargas).
He fled to Abanasinia to escape the priests and to make his way in life. He took with him his fathers spiked full plate armor and spiked large steel shield (yes, all his armor is spiked and besides looking very intimidating, it causes a huge amount of problems every time he wants to enter a human sized door! not to mention he has an AC of 24!), and his favorite weapon is a Greataxe. His approach to fighting is straightforward: "Charge into melee range of the most powerful enemy and just hack the enemy to death, let the other PCs take care of the rest".
With his great strength, powerful weapons, high AC, and abundant arrogance (since he is a member of a master race, he has no need to fear anything) he feels he has no need for anything more then pure strength.
As for role-playing, the player has done a great job of conveying to the other players his characters total disregard for them as anything more then cannon fodder, and the only reason he puts up with them is because he made a deal with the groups wizard.
You see, his minotaur wants to learn to be a wizard (so he can be a fighter/mage), but he couldn't find anyone who wanted to teach him the ways of magic. He came across a female half-elf wizard one day (this was before any of the PCs met each other) while she was practicing her magic in the woods, and he made a deal with her. He would provide her with protection as a bodyguard, in return for her teaching him magic in the "common language".
Of course he couldn’t just admit that he didn’t know ANY magic (that would be to his eyes to admit that a weakling like the half-elf could do something he couldn’t do), so he made up the excuse that he knew magic in the "minotaur language" and all he needed was help in learning to "translate" magic to the "human language". The wizard obviously
didn't buy the story, but not being dumb, saw the advantage of having a loyal minotaur bodyguard to protect her while she gained experience to become a powerful wizard capable of taking the Test of High Sorcery. As a 1st level wizard (with just 6 HP and no allies), she needed all the protection she could get. So she agreed to his deal to teach him magic, in return for his protection. So the PC took a vow on his honor to protect her from all harm, which he has kept to this day.
During the last three games I have run for my group, the player of the minotaur hasn't lost a single opportunity to let the other PCs know what he thinks about them as inferior races. He has done such a good job that when the player was unable to make it to the last game on time, and I ran his PC as an NPC, the other players on various occasions told me what they thought his minotaur would have done instead, and I changed what I was going to do to what they recommended. One of the other players even suggested the exact words the minotaur would have said when the PCs became lost in the woods because the party leader was unwilling to ask for help, that player said something like " DM, you know what the minotaur would have said? He would have said "It had to be a women, and to make it worst, it had to be an elf!” The whole group broke into laughter when he said that (and the elf’s players face when RED!!), and then they all agreed that would be what the minotaur would have said. When the minotaurs player came to the game latter that night and he was told what had happened to his minotaur in the mean time, he laughed also and agreed that would have been exactly what he would have said. LOL
The whole group has a love-hate relationship with the minotaur in their mist. On one hand, his fighting prowess is very useful in battle and he has pulled his weight in combat, not to mention he is CG and worships the god of honorable battle, but on the other hand they can't stand his constant verbal abuses, arrogance and snide remarks. Me? I am having a blast seeing how everyone deals with him.
George
I figure if he's going to follow a code or anything like that, he would end up being something lawful.
So would these codes or vows, be more a lawful action or a Minotaur social action.
Not that it really matters because he seems like an awsome character besides.
thanks for the comments, though.