What are tauric creatures? They are combinations of animal and humanoid forms, the body of an animal less the head, and the upper body and head of a humanoid; with centaurs being the classic example. The other one many rpg players and game masters may be familiar with are the drow related Drider, a hybrid of a drow and giant spider. In this post I will discuss several ideas for various tauric creatures that could be used in D&D and pathfinder settings. I won’t specifically be discussing exact stats, feats or spells as I like to keep these blog posts reasonably system agnostic.
I have been interested in the idea of either variants of classic tauric creatures or using new ones for years, and long ago found a copy of the D&D 3.0 supplement Savage species (probably my favorite old source book other than the draconomicon) which has great ideas for how to make new monsters or modify existing ones. If you are interested in creating many new monster profiles I highly recommend finding a copy of this book, though likely you will only be able to find a digital copy these days.
Over time I have considered an idea for a series of centaur based monsters that are each tied to alignments instead of a neutral creature. The one that has had the most development is the Morkentaur, a chaotic evil negative energy affiliated offshoot. Slightly more powerful than normal centaurs, their partial undead nature makes them able to draw energy from living creatures, particularly those close to death. It also makes them both weaker in direct sunlight and able to blend into shadow. But ultimately they are still a melee focused foe. They would operate mostly at night, preferring to hunt and fight when their opportunities are highest. Morkentaur are a very might makes right species, with their leaders constantly being challenged for control. This causes them to generally live in relatively small groups as few warriors can hold together large groups. Advanced Morkentaur would most likely be barbarians, rangers or druids, with clerics and fighters also somewhat common. Animal companions would probably be wolves, dogs or birds.
Other centaur variants would be chaotic good, lawful good and lawful evil. Leaning into these gives different variations of the centaur theme. A chaotic good based centaur I think would be smaller, focused on speed and more ranged skill. A composite longbow in the hands of a more mobile centaur that has some anti-evil abilities and bonuses for firing and moving. Their society would be highly nomadic, travelling where the gods required their services. They would probably have large herds of animals that they travelled with. Generally only one would be seen if it was scouting for a larger force, most encounters would be with anywhere from 3 to a dozen warriors. This variant would favour clerics, rangers and fighters.
The lawful good option could easily go down a Paladin route, but that can easily be done by just giving a centaur class levels. I think an angel touched species would be more interesting. The pathfinder protective aura that is part of the angel type along with some lesser resistances and maybe the ability to cast some kind of defensive spell or two once a day. This would give a very defensive set of abilities that stand out from other centaur variants. This society would be hidden, maybe in a stable and reasonably large demi-plane?, with only a few individuals travelling the outside world at any one point in time. A large group of angel-touched mortals would probably be incredibly valuable as fuel for dark rituals. This variant would probably favour fighters, clerics and bards.
Lastly the lawful evil choice I think would be interesting as a heavily armoured option, no magic just stuff like reduced penalties to movement for heavier armour, maybe increased charge damage. Their background could be something like evil knights, sworn to serve some kind of evil overlord through multiple generations. Their society would look like an evil knightly order, based out of fortresses designed for centaurs, a visit would look much like a visit to a real world warrior order like the knight templar commandery. Youthful warriors training under the watchful eye of a few veterans, armourers and weapon smiths repairing existing gear and crafting new gear. In this case they would likely have their own magical crafting capabilities. Highly ordered, their culture is heavily militarized and their leaders would have military titles and ranks rather than being called chiefs, elders or the like. They would likely also have indentured human minions that do much of their manual labour and serve as cannon fodder in any larger battles they get involved with.
The next idea is one less directly centaur related, the Farkembor are an orc and wolf hybrid. They tend to live in old, untouched forests and raid humanoid settlements in the surrounding area. They also tend to work in packs like regular wolves and have abilities that work off of pack tactics and ganging up on an individual target. But they also avoid getting into fights they don’t think they can easily win. If faced with a superior foe that they have to fight, they will attempt to use hit and run tactics to wear down their foe. Farkembor encampments are little more than a few lean-tos around a fire pit where meals are crudely cooked. The area around these encampments is kept free of other predators, or at least those the Farkembor can defeat. Thus experienced rangers will get concerned about Farkembor when they don’t see signs of wolves, bears or other natural predators in their normal terrain.
How do you feel about tauric creatures? Do you want more details about any of them? Are there any great ideas you think I missed? Are you interested in a follow-on post about other tauric creatures related to elves, dwarves and other humanoids?
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