Minotaur

Legend of the Minotaurs

Over a thousand years ago, a tribe of humans washed ashore in Thylea and came to live in the southern hills of the Aresian peninsula. Here, they laid foundations for a city and called it Minos. But not one man or woman among them had the strength to till the hard, rocky soil. As fate would have it, they discovered a magnificent bull that could pull a plow through any terrain for days without resting. Using the bull’s great strength, they were able to produce bountiful crops with which to survive the first winter. Over time, the people of the tribe began to venerate the bull, crowning him as the god of the harvest. When Sydon learned of this, he was furious. He threw curses down upon the settlers and transformed them into bulls, in mockery of their insolence. Each of them was harnessed to a plow and forced to tread the same winding, geometric path, until that path became a deep, labyrinthian gorge. Eventually, the plows broke, and the people of Minos slowly began to stand upright again—but their faces had been forever changed by the curse. The people of the tribe came to be called minotaurs— the bulls of Minos—and they have never fully shed their bull-like demeanors. Some of them merely have horns and a snout-like nose, while others have the entire upper torso of a bull. Some continued to dwell in the labyrinth, while others left to explore the far reaches of Thylea. Over the centuries, they have come to view their own cursed existence as the will of the Fates.

Warrior Bulls

Minotaurs possess uncommon strength, making them excellent warriors. The curse infuses their bodies with the power of a bull at all times, and their muscles seldom relax, even when they are drunk or asleep. In battle, minotaurs sometimes lose control of their emotions and fly into a rage. When this happens, the curse takes over, transforming them back into a full-fledged bull for a short period of time.

Oathbound Slaves

Minotaurs are widely shunned, because they are believed to be unthinking brutes who have been cursed by the gods. Most minotaurs gather together to form small farming or fishing communities, far from civilization. The only way that most minotaurs can find work in cities and villages is to swear oaths of service that effectively reduce them to the status of slaves. Many bear this humiliation with stoic grit, but others resort to banditry rather than submit to the unreasonable demands of cowardly superstition.