The Beast Men, Terrors from the North
Born of sorcery and bred for combat, the strength of these half-breed
Giants is matched only by their brutality. Originally created in the
frigid Northlands, the Minotaurs served as shock troops of the
Deathless Empire, but have since broken away from their Elvish masters
and carved out domains of their own. Driven by their abject hatred of
all the World's children, the Minotaurs have fought legendary wars
against the Elves that made them, the hardy Northmen, and the Centaurs
of the plains. Where once raiding parties of Minotaurs were feared
throughout the World, these bitter wars greatly thinned their numbers,
and in the days since the Turning the Minotaurs have rarely been seen
in the lands of Men. More Beast than Man, the bull-headed Minotaurs are
terrible to behold, and their incredible strength and stamina make them
even more terrifying in battle.
Their People
Of all the Children of the World, none are so fierce and terrible as
the Minotaurs of the Northern wastes. Indeed, many Magi and Loremasters
refuse to call Minotaurs "Children of the World" at all, for of all the
civilized races (save possibly the Aracoix), the Minotaurs were not
sired or crafted by any God. However to the learned who wish to
classify them, Minotaurs are imposing creatures, dreadful to behold.
Standing as tall as Half Giants, a great bull's head sprouts from their
shoulders, complete with long, wickedly sharp horns. Minotaurs also
possess a bull's hind legs in place of a man's, covered in thick, dank
fur and ending in great cloven hooves. Short, vestigial tails grow from
the base of their spines, the final testament of the Minotaur's bestial
nature. Their crude throats can barely approximate the common speech of
Men, and Minotaur voices are guttural and harsh. Few who have heard the
hideous bellowing of a Minotaur war party ever forget the terrifying
sound.
As terrifying as their appearance
may be, a Minotaur's physical nature is, if anything, even more
formidable. Bred for combat and heavy labor, Minotaurs are even
stronger than most Half Giants, and are the only race known whose
stamina and endurance surpasses that of the Dwarves. The Minotaurs pay
a price for their physical superiority, however - their massive,
unnatural frames are hulking and clumsy, and Minotaurs are the least
agile of all the enlightened races of the World. Minotaurs also have
the dullest intellects of all the World's races, and the ordeal of
their original creation has left the entire race with withered, broken
Spirits even weaker than the troubled souls of the Aelfborn and Irekei.
Originally created in the
Northlands, Minotaurs are well-suited to life in the frozen wastes.
Their thick hides and shaggy fur keep them well insulated from the
cold, and groups of Minotaurs have been seen moving through even the
direst of ice storms unfazed. Minotaurs are uncomfortable in hotter
climes, and, fortunately for many of the World's peoples, have never
tried to live in the warm lands of the South. Their large hands are not
suited to precise or delicate work, and only a few Minotaur tribes are
enlightened enough to fashion their own implements. Fearsome as a
Minotaur's face may be to look upon, their bovine heads can be deadly
to the unwary. Minotaurs' thick skulls and powerful strength let them
smash their foes with the force of a battering ram, and many a foe has
died skewered on a Bull Man's wicked blade.
Their Ways
To understand the savage culture of the Minotaurs, one must first
discern the secrets of their origins. The first Minotaurs were created
early in the Age of Days, when the Deathless Empire was at the height
of its power. Wizards of the Dar Khelegur, cruelest of all the Elves,
took some of their Human thralls, infused them with the blood and
strength of Giants, and then twisted their bodies into bestial
mockeries of Men. The unspeakable magics that wrought this dark
transformation have, thankfully, been lost in the tide of history.
Minotaurs were originally bred for use as laborers and shock troops,
and they excelled in both counts. Powerful spells backed up by the
threat of torturous punishments kept the Beast Men in line, but
eventually the Minotaurs broke free from Elvish control, and have been
a scourge to all civilized peoples ever since.
In the beginning, hatred was the
driving force behind the rise of Minotaur culture: hatred of the Elves
who had created them, hatred of the Men that they could never be again,
and hatred of any other race who sought to tell them what to do. While
there are still savage bands of Minotaurs who still roam the North,
spreading violence and terror in their wake, over time some of the
Beast Men mellowed a bit, and began to build societies of their own in
crude imitation of the other peoples of the world. These "civilized"
Minotaurs (note that many Scholars still hesitate to apply that name to
any of the Bull Men) are known as "lesser" Minotaurs, for they tend to
be of smaller stature than their savage cousins. Be advised, however,
that few who call them Lesser Minotaurs to their face survive the
mistake!
Minotaurs live in great tribes,
composed of several clans. The warriors of the tribe, as well as the
heads of every clan, swear oaths of loyalty to the Chief, who rules the
tribe by virtue of his strength and prowess in battle. All who serve
the chief do so voluntarily - Minotaurs hate nothing more than the idea
of slavery or servitude, and every Minotaur would sooner die than claim
to be any creature's servant. Every Minotaur is free to leave their
tribe at any time they wish, and they make it very clear that they do
not serve their leaders, but rather merely follow them. Minotaur
Chiefs, lacking any institutionalized authority, must walk a fine line,
vigorously defending their position through force. Bloody duels over
tribal policy are a daily occurrence, and the moment a Chief shows
weakness, one or more of his followers invariably engage him in a duel
to the death. Where once death settled all arguments, in the days since
the Turning the Minotaurs have become even more cruel. When a Warrior
challenges the Chief, the loser of the duel is tortured and abjectly
humiliated, so that when he is finally allowed to die (after a period
of days), nobody would even think of following the humbled loser again.
Losers of Tribal duels often leave the tribe to follow a different
Chief, and a few even journey to the baffling lands of the "Ten Toes"
(the Minotaur term for the other races of the World) to find their
fortunes there. Minotaur Warriors can earn even greater wages in a
Lord's retinue or a mercenary company than a Half Giant, although
employing one can be just as dangerous.
While more and more Minotaurs seems
to be setting aside their hatred of the Ten Toes and living their lives
among them, most folk still only know of the Beast Men through their
savage raids. Like Orcs, most Minotaurs produce nothing, and survive by
stealing from anyone weaker than themselves. As brutal as the Centaurs
are honorable, Minotaurs stoop to any trick or ruse that will bring
them victory, and legends whisper of the atrocities committed by the
Bull Men on battle fields both old and new. The Beast Men have little
time for tactics or stratagems, relying instead on brute force and
their toughness to carry the day. One universally reviled Minotaur
custom is their ancient practice of trophy taking - Minotaurs will
butcher the bodies of their fallen foes, bearing away heads (usually
with the jawbone torn away), ears, hands, feet, and even grislier
trophies to adorn the walls of their strongholds. Every Chief's hall is
decorated with his tribe's trophies, and Minotaurs are always eager to
expand their collections.
Their Lore
"Listen! The Moon is eaten by the dark, and the fires burn high: it is
time. Stand! Make a ring about the fire and hear the Tell. Still your
axes! There will be time for blood and brawl after. Let the flesh burn
on the fire. There will be time for eating after.
Be still! I am Yurko Bloodeyes, son
of Yegash. I am Doomsayer, Keeper of the Mask! Mine is the knowing of
hidden things. From time out of count I have led the Tell I, taught by
my father, he taught by his and so on back to the beginning. Listen
then to names and deeds long past. Would you be slaves? Would you
serve? Then listen! Hear the Tell, and remember who you are.
I talk now of the Hateful Time when
the Pale Ones made us. Dark words come down of those days tales of
crystal towers and dank labyrinths. The Ten-Toes were already broken,
and the Pale Ones had made them slaves. But cunning were the Ten Toes,
and hard to control. The Pale Ones are strong in knowing but weak in
flesh they needed warriors to guard their Empire, and workers to build
it. Finally, they took some of them as was in chains and made a great
talk to them. These slaves they chose was the best of them, the
strongest not like the rest, whose souls were all broke with pain. The
weaklings lived as animals, without even the knowing to make words.
Power the Pale Ones offered, and Strength, and Freedom. The slaves
accepted, but they did not know what price the Pale Ones would ask.
So began the Birthing. With magic
and blade the Pale Ones shaped us, cut us and twisted us from the flesh
of the Ten Toes. No pain of fire or axe or horn can match the torments
those slaves knew. When it was done they were ten toes no more: they
were Minotaurs, strongest and toughest of all the creatures in the
World! Our race was birthed, but birthed in treachery, for the Ten Toes
had lied. Strength they gave, and Power, but no Freedom. Fearing the
Minotaur, they made the Maalra, the Words of Pain, magic sounds that
touched our limbs like fire. The Maalra was their weapon, their whip,
and so the first-born of our kind were still slaves, bullied and kept
in line with the threat of pain. We resisted, for what fear have we of
pain? They were strong, those First Ones, and they meant to crush their
masters, but the Pale Ones are full of the knowing of dark magic. They
wove the Soulchains, magic to bend mind and break will. And so the
Minotaur were slaves, made for bruiting and for working, and for
beating them ten-toes as still wore chains and toiled in their first
shape. Our fathers were turned against them as had been their kin, made
to beat them and slaughter them. And so they began the Great Hate: they
come to hate the weak ten-toes, too stupid to resist, but they hated
the Pale Ones even more.
I will not talk long of that time,
and of how the Pale Ones used us. They painted the glaciers with our
blood in wars with the Giants of the mountains, and when their own dark
kin turned on them, it was the Minotaur who burned in the furnaces of
the deserts. Still the Pale Ones gloat of their victories in the War of
Ice and the War of Fire. Hah! It was our bones that shattered in those
wars, or blood as flowed in rivers, our flesh as was torn from us!
Never forget it! The Pale Ones are cowards and deceivers! Hate them!
Let your hate burn as this bonfire; let it be so until the ending of
the world!
Nobody, not even the Masked God,
knows how many of our kind died in those wars. Our numbers dwindled,
but still we fought, dying at the pale Ones' orders. But a change was
coming! The time of Reckoning had come. The ten-toes, spurred to
courage by the sight of us, stole back the knowing of words, and broke
their chains. The Minotaur were all away, fighting and dying on distant
battlefields, and the Pale Ones learned too late the price of
cowardice. And all that sound of war and carnage roused the Maimed God,
master of war. The Maimed God looked out from his cavern, and he,
mightiest of warriors, looked on us with pride. He saw as we'd been
wronged, and he was angered. The Masked God knew the ways of the Pale
Ones he had hated them and their wicked Gods since the Before Time,
when Day and Night were yet unborn. The War God reached out with his
power, and with his mighty axe he broke the Soulchains. At last our
people were free! We turned on our masters and broke them. They lashed
us with the Maalra, but still we cleaved them. They turned all their
magic upon us, but still we crushed them, and drank the marrow from
their bones. One Minotaur, mightier than all the rest, led our people
out of the Pale Ones' cities and away from the hellish deserts. His
name was Kordo Skullcrusher. Every clan of Minotaur still chants his
praise.
The Pale Ones' doom was at hand
their slaves turned on them, their kin burned them, and then the great
Black Gate opened, and all the Chaos spawn came through to destroy
them. Oh how they wailed! How they lamented the loss of their strength,
for without us they had no warriors at all! The Pale Ones called to us
with their magic and begged us to return, but we did not listen. Kordo
led our people to the north to the land of eternal ice, and here we
made our home, far from the ten-toes and the Pale Ones. The lands were
harsh, but what beast is stronger than we? The wolf and the bear
learned fear when we walked the snows. In the fullness of time Kordo
grew old, and he died as any great chief should; in a blood challenge,
axe to axe. After many duels the Minotaur divided, and the Clans were
born.
The Clans went their own ways, each
with a long and glorious litany. Many are the names of our chieftains,
our hunters, our warriors. We will sing their names later. We found new
enemies to fight, for the Icelands were far from empty. Soon the
Minotaur met the Giants and the Red-Hairs, those Human ten-toes that
the Pale Ones never enslaved. They sought to drive us from our new
home, but we were too strong. Many feuds did we fight with the
Red-Hairs, and even the Giants learned to fear our strength. Food we
took from them, and women, and lands, and we made feasts of their very
flesh. Some of our kind, bred to shatter stones in the mines of the
Pale Ones, dug deep into the mountains for ore. There we met the Stone
Men, the Dwarves, and we crushed them. For a thousand years we knew the
Time of Clans. It was a glorious time for our people, for we grew
mighty in our freedom, and all who lived in the North lived in fear of
us.
Listen! I speak now of Gurrok
Gravenhorn, Gurrok the Grim. Know that name, and fear it! Some say
Gurrok was born of Giant's blood, and that no Minotaur who had ever
lived had known his strength. Alone he went into the lair of Vragallak
the Ice Drake, and slew it after a mighty battle. Gurrok bore a mighty
axe, stolen from the Stone Folk, an axe named Doom. Never shall Doom's
match be known for it is the King's Axe, mightier than every axe but
one. Gurrok went from clan to clan, and with Doom in his hands he
bested every chief in combat. And so all the clans were united, and
Gurrok became a king. Strong he was, and mighty. Yet wise too, for he
had the knowing of a King, and those as followed him followed out of
glory, not fear. No Minotaur served Gurrok, for we do not serve! Never
has a mightier host marched to war their hooves shook the earth and
their battle howls tore the very sky! The Hordewar had begun.
The Ten-toes and the Giants were as
weeds before our axes. Gurrok's horde scattered our enemies, and the
north was ours. But in the very moment of our triumph, the glory of the
Minotaur was stolen so mighty was our horde, the Red-Hairs and the
Giants met in council, and buried their ancient feuds to strike as one.
A great hero of the Northmen came, protected by the strange magic of
the Giants. I will not say that hero's name: Bloodbraid is his only
name to us. Bloodbraid and his host attacked, even as the Giants called
forth blizzards and shook the snows of the mountains down upon us.
Remember! Never trust the Ten-toes, especially the Vorri of the North!
Never trust a Giant, for they are cowards who fight by magic!
When the fight was done, Gurrok was
slain, his axe lost. Many exiles from the clans have gone to seek it,
as have many chiefs. Some day Gurrok's axe will be found, and the Horde
will rise again. But not now. After the Hordewar, the Minotaur returned
to their old ways. Generations passed in the snowy north, and the
Ten-toes and Giants stayed clear of our lands, for they feared our
vengeance. In the Warmlands the hordes of Chaos ravaged everything, and
the Ten-Toes and the Pale Ones fought them to the death, but what did
we care?
I talk now of the time of my
grandfather's grandfather, the time when the Warrior came into our
lands. Fearsome he was, and all of the clans roused themselves at the
news of his coming. Dozens of chieftains came and challenged him, and
every one of them died on the Maimed God's axe. And then Morloch the
Destroyer removed his mask, and spoke to us. He told us of the
sufferings he had endured at the hands of the Human's God, how his true
face had been ruined, his wife destroyed, and his legacy taken from him
in shame. The Deceiver God Pandarrion had lured Morloch to destroy him,
but his plans had failed. Morloch lived, and hungered for vengeance.
The Maimed God had no children, he said, but he had seen us warring in
the Hateful Time and he realized that we Minotaurs were his true
children. Who else but we, maimed by Pandarrion's children as he
himself had been maimed by Pandarrion's folly? We were the only
warriors worthy of his legacy. Morloch told of how he had shattered the
Soulchains and freed us from our slavery. And then Morloch showed us
his power: at his command, all the slain chieftains rose from death and
were whole again. They had found the knowing of terrible things, and
some of Morloch's magic was in them. They were the first Doomsayers,
and their children's children's children still heed the Maimed God's
will and keep the clans within the sight of his mask.
Morloch told us of Shadowbane, the
Black Blade, stolen from him by the Pale Ones and the Stone Folk. He
led us south, and we joined the hosts of Orcs and Trolls. For the first
time since the Birthing, we raised arms against the Pale Ones, and grim
indeed was our vengeance! But Morloch's other followers were too weak.
His armies broke, and three Gods working as one to drive Morloch from
the field. The Minotaur withdrew to the north again. The ten-toes think
that Morloch is dead, but they know nothing! Our great war drew the
eyes of the world, so that Morloch could continue his search for the
Black Blade out of the sight of Men and Gods.
Many chieftains reviled Morloch's
name. They called him a deceiver, and slaughtered their Doomsayers
before returning to their ancient lands. Many feuds and wars were
fought, and the mightiest clans stayed true to our adopted father.
Those who threw aside the Masked Gods' gifts met the cruelest fate of
all in the time of my grandfather's father, the Pale Ones re-forged the
Soulchains. Only the magic of the Doomsayers could break the mighty
spells - those clans true to the Mask endured, while the rest went
south to be slaughtered in another war for the Pale Ones.
That war broke the world, and
plunged all the lands into chaos. What do we care? Has not suffering
and hardship always been our way? Our world changed little we live as
we have always lived, by strength and raid and blood. The Pale Ones and
the Ten Toes and all the rest have lost their precious empires. Good! I
say they taste the fruits of their own wickedness! The very Gods, some
say, are dead. Good! I say let them die. The Warmlands are weak, and
our axes are sharp. This is a Time of Blood, when the world will come
to know our strength again, and fear it. The empires that sought to
break us and enslave us are no more. In time Morloch will return to us,
and lead us in the Last Battle. On that day the Sun will die, and all
those who have wronged us will know our vengeance. We will be ready!
The Tell is told. Remember it! Now, let us eat"