Taureans

The near-human Taureans claim descent from the infamous Minotaur of Crete. While the beast would most commonly slaughter and eat the youths and maidens sent as tribute from Myrmidos, the monster would sometimes succumb to baser desires, raping and impregnating the maidens. Most of these unfortunates were killed by the beast or starved to death in the stygian labyrinth, but some escaped through forgotten passages and - shocked and traumatized - returned to the light of the world. There they bore their monstrous children, bringing the cursed bloodline of the Moon goddess' progeny to the Known World. All Taureans are male and vary in appearance - like their twisted patriarch, all have bovine features to a greater or lesser extent. Some have hooves and the horned heads of mighty cattle, while others are simply larger and hairier than normal humans. Most fall somewhere in between these two extremes - but there is no rhyme or reason to their appearance; a Taurean who could pass for a particularly brutish human in dim light might sire with some unfortunate victim a monstrous creature the very image of the Minotaur. For that is what unites all Taureans - the base and uncontrollable savagery of the monster of Crete. Their physical prowess is only matched by their debauched lusts for flesh - both to eat and to possess sexually. What intelligence they have is in awful thrall to these horrific desires, and no Taurean can resist its siren call for long. Fortunately, if such is the right word, their hunger for satiation makes them careless and clumsy, and one preying on a human settlement is soon hunted down and killed. They form no societies, and are dejected and lost creatures, living a lonely and despairing existence. Periodically, a conniving or evil man will recruit Taureans as shock-troops or gladiators - "paying" the creatures with the flesh of farmers' herds and daughters.