That, or a shortened version, will work for the description as far as I'm concerned!
I've added the following slightly polished description to the
Ovinaur Working Draft.
A centaur-like being the size of a small pony. From the waist down it has the furry body of a mountain goat, from the waist up it has the body of a small humanoid. It has patches of fur around the elbows and forearms like the feathered fetlocks of a draft horse, but the rest of its upper body has as little hair as most humanoids do. The creature has a pair of horns that emerge from the topmost back of its head and curve backwards and downwards, ending on either side of the nape of its neck. Its ears are pointed and exceptionally long.
For the flavor, the original text makes it sound like ovinaurs arose due to interbreeding between goatlings and halflings, though I don't know where the centaur part came from. Do we want to use that? Sin-eating is worth a mention, but I'm not sure what else.
They're definitely a cross between goatlings and halflings since that's what
Goatmen of Kavaja says. How that turned them into hexapods is as mystery, but I guess it's no more a mystery than why mixing a human with a horse results in a six-limbed centaur.
As for the background, there's not that much information in the original material and some of it is specific to Mystara.
How about:
Ovinaur are a race of goatkin formed from the intermingling of goatlings and halflings. They live in semi-nomadic clans that migrate between encampments according to the seasons, but they also have permanent villages. The most important village is a spiritual and social sites at the center of the ovinaur's dominion were they meet to perform important ceremonies and decide weighty issues under the leadership of an elder, the
župan. In addition, the ovinaur have trading villages on their borders where they exchange goods with neighboring races. Ovinaur are the goatkin race most open to interaction with non-goatkin and have gained considerable knowledge and wealth from trading. They are often hired as guides or advisors by other goatkin.
All ovinaur have the peculiar ability to 'eat' the sins of the recently dead, which prevents the corpse from returning as an undead or evil spirit. Few take up this practice, since a sin-eating ovinaur risks returning as an undead themselves. The majority of ovinaurs fear sin-eaters and are more likely to shun their company than any other races.
Ovinaur speak Common, Halfling and their own language, goatspeech (or as say call it, "kozajęzyk"), which they share with goatlings and caprine. They often speak additional languages, usually Elven, Sylvan, or one of the dialects spoken by their goatfolk cousins.
Hold on a moment. Shouldn't we include a height/length and weight.
Hmm… come to think of it, we didn't the Goatling a height and weight.
For that matter, we didn't give the Goatfolk a height and weight!
Let's see, we have "Goatlings are human size (from head to toe not counting the horns.)" so how about:
A goatkin has the same height and weight as a human (their height does not include its horns).
A goatling has the same height and weight as a human (their height does not include its horns).
An ovinaur has the same weight as a human but is as short as a halfling (not including its horns). An average female ovinaur is 2 feet 11 inches tall and weighs 140 pounds, an average male ovinaur is 3 feet 1 inches tall and weighs 175 pounds.
