Do your minotaurs have hooves or feet?

[dead]

Just wondering whether your minotaurs have hooves or feet (like a human)?

I tend to picture them having human feet but the MM picture has one with hooves. (If you put hooves on 'em, they look like a bull-headed satyr to me.)

What's the *official* WotC stance on this?

What is the *mythological* stance on this? Did the *original* Minotaur of Greek Myth have hooves or feet?

What are the minotaurs of Krynn like in this regard?

 

[Taneel BrightBlade]

Mythological: feet I think. it was a bullheaded human least thats what the story i read was.

 

[Stone Dog]

I vote other because it really depends on what I am going for. If I am just running some action scene with a rampaging beast of anger and cunning I am going to go for the bonecrunching stomp of hooves. Or a martial society of minotaurs. Those get hooves too just because they sound so impressive marching.

However, if I want to do the whole mytholigical/house of leaves type horror game I'd go ahead and give the thing feet and put the emphisis on how human the creature must have been once.

And the gist of the myth was Zeus coming to a noble woman of minos (the name escapes me) in the form of a great white bull and seducing her (those wacky ancient greeks). the child was cursed with monsterous form and to hunger for human flesh.

 

[Stone Dog]

Or another version I just found is Minos II of Crete claiming that anything he prayed for would be granted by the gods since they granted him his kingdom.

He then prayed for a bull to sacrifice to posidon and a beautiful white bull emerged from the sea, but Minos kepts it and sacrificed some old bull from his herd.

Poseidon didn't care for this backhanded betrayal so he caused Minos' wife, Queen Pasiphae to be consumed with lust for the animal.

Daedalus was commisioned by the Queen to build a wooden cow on wheels that the queen could rest inside of so that the bull would be fooled into consumating that lust.

The queen became pregnant and gave birth to a bull headed (and tailed ) son named Asterius. The king was pretty pissed about this (naturally) and imprisoned Daedalus for helping the Queen with this mad desire. He then had the beast thrown into the Labrynth where it could not escape.

So classically, feet.

 

[DM_Matt]

Daedalus was commisioned by the Queen to build a wooden cow on wheels that the queen could rest inside of so that the bull would be fooled into consumating that lust.

Was this the inspiration for that myth about the death of Catherine the Great.

 

[Stone Dog]

Was this the inspiration for that myth about the death of Catherine the Great.

What myth? Seriously though, I never had a history professor deny it as a myth, but then again that is only two out of two that I actually questioned.

Well, the second of them wasn't really a question. When he finished off the lesson of Catherine the Great he said, "and then we all know what happened." I was the only one who laughed and had to explain it to the class. Apparently that was the first time that only one student heard the story. He seemed to believe it though.

 

[Chaos Drake]

Hooves I would think. Aren't they a representation of the sexual urge? So they are animalistic in nature.

But they are mythic animals so it's up to the GM.

 

[Dark Jezter]

Tank treads.

 

[dead]

The queen became pregnant and gave birth to a bull headed (and tailed ) son named Asterius. The king was pretty pissed about this (naturally) and imprisoned Daedalus for helping the Queen with this mad desire. He then had the beast thrown into the Labrynth where it could not escape.

So classically, feet.

Maybe we need to replace the minotaur with the Half-Cow template?

 

[Romnipotent]

Feet is traditional, hooves are just funnier, because you can make PC's THINK it a minotaur, and its just a kid on stilts.