Bovine Races

Discuss them.

I'm working on a fantasy race, big bovine people somewhere between (male) Draphs (pic related) and minotaurs in physiology. Their origin was as an engineered labor race by an extremely ancient and magically advanced civilization that has long since collapsed and the memory of which is all but lost (along with several other beast races such as centaurs, yuan-ti, and lion!orcs) and their stats are basically Muls, with slight flavor tweaking. Current name candidates are "hulder" and "burden" (from an old Veeky Forums post about yak people)
What's a culture of huge, tireless, mostly herbivorous simpletons like? Are hooved feet/bovine legs ridiculous on bipeds? What might their relationship to more vicious, animalistic minotaurs be (lycanthropes?) Post art if you've got it, too.

I honestly think the Tauren are a great race and interesting concept, as well as their cousins on the Northern continent

Be prepared for the discussion to devolve into lactating bovine females

>whelp, too late

I'll add that my own race of bovine; The Aurus, a sort of bipedal mix of traditional spanish bulls and water buffalo live in large fortresses cared into mountains and dominate the surrounding areas with a highly organized caste system with a smaller more gazelle like Auruan sub race being the more populous commoner and merchant classes.

Better than discussion of black bull NTR.

>Implying big black minotaurs don't turn women of all other races into queens of Spades

Bovines eat slowly. They chew, constantly, and have multichambered stomachs. I would imagine that it would be unlikely to see one of these folk without a plug of food at any time.

They're probably slow to speak but thoughtful. Very big on community. Cleanliness is important as hooved races will have to keep their feet picked and clean. I'd look into the Essene Jewish sect, who held strict dietary and cleanliness as a big virtue.

On more ruthless minotaur types: think Mad Cow Disease. It's a brain destroying bit of nastiness, spreads quickly if dorty, and lies dormant for long periods of time. As their mage masters used to keep them disease free and taught them cleanliness your bovines shun those who have been infected. They become irritable, ready to beserk at any time, and die terribly.

They would build insular communities, and travel in groups. They don't need pack animals, and serving as another's beast of burden is a sacred duty, nearly a blood debt sort of thing.

On the irritating sexualizing of udders: females who are lactating are given special priority, kept away from the outside world. A bull may keep his heifer in the home while she is weaning calves. Some who follow their pastrol deity remain in milking after weaning calves to serve the sick, elderly, and orphaned their milk, as it is a healthy alternative and within their dietary guidelines. No adult healthy bovine would drink the milk themselves. Each female after weaning produces a cheese to sacrifice for the health of their growing child before going back into the world. Perhaps they wear some sort of modesty clothing.

Those people are idiots. Even dairy cows don't produce milk for no reason, it happens after calving and we just pump regularly so it doesn't stop because we want it.

Essentially, cow-women would only lactate under the same situations that human women would.

"For millennia, upon our brow and back Sol beats his radiance. Through his light we cast our shadow. Through our shadow our true self and in this, divinity." - "The Holiest Words of the Highest Lord and Seventh Disc."

I could go on, and answer some of those questions if you'd like op

One thing you can do with them to defy expectations is that cows are not, as it happens, all that dumb. They LOOK stupid, yes, but they are actually pretty good at problem solving, as any farmer who has a cow escape can attest.

They have stupid looking faces, so they come off as dumber than they actually are. And we provide them with everything they need/control their environment, so they rarely have to do anything but just exist and be cows.

So have the cow people have a reputation for being dumb as a stereotype, but in actuality they are on par with humans. They are just slow to speak and have unexpressive faces, which make them seem dim.

The bovine race shuns using leather save that handed down by death. Dead bovines are drained of blood, skinned and tanned, while their bodies are roasted. The family unit gathers and eats their dead, grinding their bones and mixing in the blood to create a blood paste which is mixed into clay to create a clay cenotaph to the dead with his/her deeds and life written on it. Part of the leather wraps this death stone. These are then placed into a secret location of a family 'graveyard'.

Unfortunately, this sacred cannibalism is one of the causes of the minotaur illness. An infected body can infect others. Thus a minotaur is cremated to ash, and thus forgotten by all.

The other leather is made into items to help others. Old leather is rough, but still usable in some ceremonial items.

A strong big race would most likely use that strength to its advantage, preferring heavy weaponry. Armor may vary, but again the proscription on leather is limiting.

THE HOUR DRAWS NEAR.

PRAISE THE GOD-PHAROH, MAY HE RETURN SWIFTLY AND WE BE FOUND WORTHY.

>Unfortunately, this sacred cannibalism is one of the causes of the minotaur illness. An infected body can infect others. Thus a minotaur is cremated to ash, and thus forgotten by all.

May I use this for the Aurus priest caste as a form of cultural control?

You know you can make leather from things other than cows, right? We just mostly use cow leather because we are slaughtering them in mass anyway so we have skin to spare.

Horse or deer leather are just fine for most purposes.

Shun these horrible men and their false and heathen gods, Divine are only the Celestial for none can match their glory! Shun these men who demand worth! We are but the weakest in their light in time before Dawn and that after Dusk! Be gone heretic before we gore you.

Most folks think Burdens are slow, or stupid because they are thoughtful. Nothing could be further from the truth. Burdens have adapted the mystic script of their mage creators into their own mundane script. Casters of the race focus on internal magic, and the religious devotion and cleanliness shows an uncommon amount of paladins.

Most Burden spellcasters are trained in a mentor-student relationship handed down. Spellcasters have the right to take promising children. Spellcasters collect the spells and works of their dead and claim their leathers to make a unique spellbook for their honored dead, which is stored among others in a separate mage's crypt used to teach others.

Use any and all weaker races to your whim, for they are not worthy to bask in the divine.

Yeah, that's fine.

True, but I mostly meant cow leather. There may be religious proscription for priests or others for ALL leather, just as those who handle the dead would have no such proscriptions.

Is there a schism between storytellers/wisemen and those who focus on ethereal magics?

Just remember
Giant tittys

Natural magics would be a sort of tricky subject. Some scholars may assume that one who is so gifted was given the gift by their divinity or their mage creators. Others may consider it anathema, a form of the same illness that drives the minotaur illness. It could be an interesting take.

There's also the diasphora to think of. What happens if a bovine dies away from his people? What if the body is found rotten or dessicated?

There's a lot of interesting possibilities. I'm just providing a nice simple place for OP to go from

Perhaps they're more herd creatures than individuals, not that they aren't capable of functioning on their own, far from it, but that by and large, they put the needs of their family and friends ahead of themselves.

I think this may be the third time I've made a minotaur race on Veeky Forums. I think one was Hindu seafarers, another was full on Greco-Roman style. I know one is on suptg somewhere IIRC.

This is my second time, the thread got my noodle firing up and I expanded a bit on the race I had, and then made a whole new race foundation just now with a Nepali background

Yeah, I remember working on some Tibetan/Nepalese thing but it was more yakfolk too. I like these problems and finding solutions but honestly so rarely get to use it.

>Discuss them.

Sure.

I have and use Minotaurs: The Males are large (7-8ft tall) humanoids with normal bodies, but bull heads. The Females are large (6-8ft tall) humanoids with normal bodies, have some of the largest fucking heaving not-literal-cow-tit sized breasts, and more horns+ears than bullish heads.
It's what I like, so sue me.

Cultural/not-fetish stuff:
>Minotaurs are basically "the race" I use for all the oriental cultures: india, turkey, egypt, china, & korea.

>They have an INTENSE natural obsession with geometry in all it's forms: mazes, labyrinths, numbers, directions, and are the species credited with most of the worlds understanding of math, pythagorean theorems, and were one of the first species to accurately measure the circumference of the planet.

>They currently run about 40-60% of the civilized world depending on whom you ask given all the pyramids, steppahs, palaces, and hanging gardens they build.
>Minotaur Pharaohs are a thing.

>The natural compass located in their head prevents them from getting lost, but also makes them excellent sailors and their chinese/indian equivalents have a pretty powerful navy.

>Some of them revere and worship a kind of "sacred geometry" religion as opposed to actual gods: this pisses off the few gods that still remain alive, but fuck um'. Angles > Angels, amiright?

>Indian Minotaurs though are extremely religious and have a strict caste system where in the "holiest cows" reside at the top of society.

>CRAZED Cannibal Minotaurs are the product of exiled-minotaurs banished to the west: some are political exiles, but most are untouchables or genuine outlaws. The vast majority of westerners experience with Minotaurs is via gladiators fighting them in arenas or as slaves; they know nothing of their kingdoms or heritage, so bam. Stereotypes.
>Minotaurs do occasionally say, "we wuz kangs", but it's usually the ones who are exiled as thieves/degenerates.

Id be down to do some sort of quest or light series of world building with you, maybe a nomadic sort of journey where our two bovine peoples meet, adventure and exchange culture

If they were specifically engineered as a beast of burden/labor race, would hooved or human-ish legs be more efficient?

>If they were specifically engineered as a beast of burden/labor race, would hooved or human-ish legs be more efficient?

I don't think it'd make a difference since both would be just as efficient on a humanoid body?

Hey, I like this!

Male bovines are used for labour.

Females act as wetnurses.

That's about it.

Bumpy bumpy.

Thanks man! I try to put some thought into things.

>Queens of Spades
>Sister and her friends go to Vegas, got tattoos like those for each suit
>One that got Queen of Spades was super christian, married at 20 to highschool sweetheart, church every sunday kinda chick
>Still don't know if she knows

Why fetishists and what not gotta ruin perfectly good theme tattoos for people?