I played a minotaur monk. He liked to use his size advantage in grappling. being the result of an involuntary union between a human woman and a cursed minotaur, she left her monstrous child at a monastery devoted to Helm. He generally refused to use his bite attack because he considered it uncivilized.

Best example of Minotaur as playable character, Kaz, Friend of Huma the First of Heroes books.

Man, that is some lack of cowbell in the intro.

Hahahaha you remind me of my time playing a Minotaur. Either the savage type one or the strange super outlier one. My favorite was the time I played a Minotaur Paladin that sought to redeem his clan from the influence of Baphomet. Oddly as you said about the loyalty. Vorse Greyhorn (my minotaur) became sworn friends with the party. Pity for the evil warlord when he killed those friends, Vorse hounded him through the very ends of Faerun... up to Icewind Dale if I'm not mistaken in my memory of the cold bitterness and constantly smiting Yetis that got in my way.

Minotaurs were playable in D&D from the very start? Learn something new every day...

I played a Minotaur in my first game of D&D...got killed by a dire rat because my DM is a merciless bastard and no one bothered to explain how combat works. I learned after that.

Interesting that you used Worf to illustrate your point on what "civilized" minotaurs would be like because, in addition to our beloved Klingon hero, Michael Dorn voiced a "civilized" (and lawful for that matter) minotaur on the old Gargoyles TV series. Great video AJ, keep up the good work sir!

Kaz the greatest of minotaurs!

Minotaur are my favorite fictional creatures. I'm so happy to hear they are playable characters

Has always been one of my favorite beasties. So much potential. I can attest in 4e they were very OP as a player race. Had a essentially unstoppable minotaur barbarian in the party. The saving grace was the role playing gold.

Loved Kaz, still my favorite Minotaur.

I love you showed off the Charr toward the end here. But that said I had a minotaur monk who was a fighter, and was part of a raiding party. The party was defeated and he was enslaved by the drow. The fun thing of the bonds mentioned, and a bit literally was he wanted not only to out smart his drow overseer, but best them in combat, even as a slave. The other player who was a drow agreed when time came there would be one final fight to see who would essentially serve who. Or rather if the drow kept his bovine beast o burden or if my monk would go on to being a warlord. That was the plan and sadly the campaign died. Another fun tidbit was, he was originally named Perseus, but after his defeat he was called "Spare (ribs)"

From 31:22 to 31:42 the art work shown is race known as the Charr their a humanoid feline race think lions and mountain lions with horns that walk in two or four limbs. Cool art work though and a great video been looking all over for info regarding minotaurs within the D&D setting !

I love playing monsters as a character, back in 3rd ed I got the Savage Species book and played a Minotaur from level 1, he was growing up as we adventured. Sadly we didn't get to finish that campaign. :( Thanks for the video, I'm enjoying your channel, I'm glad I stumbled across it and subscribed :)

would it be interesting to have a minotaur character, afraid to go into alabyrinth settingbecause they are afraid they will become savage

Thumbs up from the lizardfolk, no problems with a Minotaur munching humans here

Quickly becoming one of my favorite KZfaqrs. Love your voice and the over all way you do things.

We played 2nd ed back in the day and one of the most memorable characters we had was a minotaur named Mongo. He was a true badass. He also wielded a weapon which was in reality a psionicist who could assume other shapes and had the ability to cause pain which effectively doubled damage! Frightening indeed.

I've played a minotaur in several different D&D editions, DM'd for them, and been in games with other minotaur characters (including Krynn settings). They are a lot of fun, and I'd recommend trying them out. Really enjoyed this video. Thanks!

thank you for your videos . iv DM'ed games for years but the added bits of info iv gotten from your videos have made my games that much better and more. thank you sir keep up the great work :

I love your channel, it is hands down one of the best channels on youtube. Please keep doing what you're doing, we love you Greetings from the netherlands

AJ, one of the things I can count on when watching your videos is that you say something like “Well, that’s about it”...and then you go on to share a bunch of other cool information. ❤️

I kinda find it funny how so many large sized races get shoe-horned into some variant of the Proud Warrior Race Guys Trope. I've been thinking about what it would be like if a setting had all of it's Cows, Horses & Pigs transformed into playable races instead of just having them be background animals. I'd Imagine the Pigs (Ogres) to be loud, and have a love of tasty (but not necessarily healthy) food and the arts. Extra wide streets in a noisy market, with a cacophony of smells conflicting with each other, leading to large, historic theatre. As a side note, Ander Wood had an interesting take on Ogres for his setting in his game, Within the Ring of Fire. Cows & Bulls would obviously become Minotaurs, but instead of the brutes they're always depicted as, I see them more as VERY devoted parents. They're very entrenched in traditional gender roles, with the males being the stern father and the females being nurturing mothers. You've heard about how parents have done incredible things to save their children, right? Imagine that in the body of a large, bestial person, and that response is directed at you. Yikes. I also kinda imagine Minotaur breastmilk being sought after by other races as a way to ensure healthy children, after all, bulls were often associated with virility and fertility throughout history. I don't know if Horse people (Equinar? Epona?) are a thing in D&D (aside from Centaurs obviously), but I imagine them being very athletic and vain. They love the feeling of exerting their body in a hard days work, and a pretty much stereotypical jocks. Not always the brightest, their society would probably have some their priorities is the wrong places with emphasis on appearance and "bro-culture", hindering them from really advancing as a community. Let me know what you think.

Thanks for making this! Always been a great fan of Minotaurs and wanted my first D&D character to be one. Great help!

Sweet Video! I'm gonna be playing a Minotaur very soon myself for 5th Edition, and I'm just trying to learn as much as i can to match their personality. It will be a pleasure to roleplay! :3

Always inspiring and informative! Thank you Sir for the wonderful things you do.🙂

Some great artwork in this video!

Just be glad Minotaurs are not like the one in the movie,"Your Highness"....gawwd! That was an awkward scene to watch!

1:25 this art is from Kaz the Minotaur. Some of the best Dragon Lance novels...

They have quite a nice moo-vement speed.

Hey AJ... I could build a whole campaign with just this one video. You give some much information, thank you AJ. Great video as always. Have a great day!

If I remember the Dragonlance lore correctly, Minotaurs in that setting were originally Ogres who were mutated by a magic stone.

This is helpful to what I was planning. I wanted to have a setting with a conquered minotaur cult, with a pretty much run down maze with setting goodies in it and the chaotic monsters imprisoned by a Bone Naga. But the Unearthed Arcana was making me think I also might like some more interesting NPC not so bestial, and so I was when I was writing up a pirate I might I like to put in I considered it, but was thinking the two could not exist in the same setting. I wrote the instead to Tiefling druid, but your explanation of how they can exist has confirmed what her first mate will be. A minotaur... monk.

Such a wealth of information in this video- wow!

Kenders would make a great video!!! It could be really funny to explain how a party full of Kenders would work when all the players are RPing them right...

Fish oil is often used as a mood stabilizer. Tablets are actually sold on shelves at pharmacys

I love minotaur I have em in my deck in mtg

I've been waiting for this one

Look into the Greek mythology of "Io". She's a great candidate for a goddess of good-aligned minotaurs..

Not sure if you’ve played Dragon Age, but if you haven’t check out the Qunari. I feel like they are basically what these Minotaur would evolve into socially if they keep the focus of removing their chaotic nature.

I want to see that fight between the Minotaur and Medusa

We started with greyhawk. About 3/4 kampains, some pulled to epic lvls. Then kara tur and dragonlance, dont remember which first. After that we keept changing between swordcoast regions and kara tur. I very enjoyed the setting of Dragonlance, espetially knights orders. Maybe we played it wrong, maybe it was bad campain but i felt like it was, actually, too fantastic.

I had a Minautor as an NPC henchman. His name was Ferdinand. His maze was grown of rose bushes. We all called him Ferdi. He was found as a calf by a Tiefling(sp. ?) Named Maug. Maug was known as "The Warlock O the Woods" raised Ferdi to be good.

All my campaigns are in Krynn. I would love for more videos about it! I’ve read something like 200 novels at least from that series.

Very good thank you and have a nice day.

Let me tell you about minotaurs. ( cow in a can moooo) That's the intro I was waiting for.

*sees video uploaded* Today is a good day...

I like your suggestion re: Gnomes. One small thing that's probably worth taking into account, the gnomes of Krynn have traditionally been fairly lighthearted, bordering on silly. Literally they live in "Mt Nevermind" (because they blew up a large chunk of the peak as they were naming it). Generally a steampunkish culture. Could be interesting to see how FR gnomes adapted (or didn't) to that culture. Or maybe they miss it snd that's why theyre dour..

7.4k subs. 7.7k views. That's how you know you've got a good channel ;p

The exhibit A part was awesome. But yes, fish is really good for most of us :)

I've heard somewhere that there was a Minotaurian entity called Yevüs (pronounced Yevoos) who was worshiped as a malignant god on the island of Crete, I'd have to do more research on it but it would be an interesting element to add to a campaign as perhaps a splinter cult of Minotaurs, a channel called Lighthouse Horror did a story that has the main character who is a vampire working for an agency that that enforces a piece agreement between humans and Fey, and the main character of the story investigates a string of murders were each victim has an organ harvested by cultists of Yevüs to bring about an even called The Divergence to bring Yevüs into this world

I reckon it's possible for there to be minotaur who are more human looking in appearance as well that make it easier for them to integrate into human societies

12:45 What episode is this from I wonder

"Monsters should stay monsters!" I agree... that's why EVIL is a playable option. You don't always have to be the hero of the story, people!

Not saying you're wrong, and I'm not trying to be mean. But the "And look at me now" argument always makes me laugh because there's always that one asshole (usually me) who's like "Yeah look at *You* now...." I love this channel. Keep up the Awesome work.

One of my favorite characters ever was Tirzah, who eventually earned the title of "Walker of Worlds". He was a minotaur wizard/fighter from a home-made world of one of my friends, whose minotaurs were vastly influenced by the Dragonlance version. He began with nothing, an outcast awaiting judgement in battle for his horribly irreverent thoughts...that other races might be worth something more than just slaves. It was just a passing theory, but it got him in trouble. He knew he could not win a straight fight with the Emperors' champions, and he didn't want to die without at least finding out if his ideas had any basis, so he dared the Dark Forest, barely surviving its dangers and messing up a fly spell (the feather he found came from a flying reptile that also had feathers, who knew?) and was stuck flying for weeks before something broke the spell! He also ran into a sacred pool that increased his strength to something almost respectable, but changed him from chaotic good to Lawful good (don't you hate alignment changes?). He had to define his own rules in a way, but I played him to be very strict about it. So he did indeed get shifted from world to world often enough, and along the way made some interesting friends. Two things though... he was always having to sit on his temper, so he was in constant stress with that usually... and two, the whole time I played him he had this odd luck. When the party needed him, he would come through unbelievably well... but then some minor action would turn into a pratfall, making his temper that much worse :) Tirzah was a wild departure from my normal character, but I had a lot of fun playing him, and the fact that others enjoyed it as well means I did it well! So here's to Minotaur nerds and their accident-prone lives ;)

I've seen quite a few of your videos already and was wondering if you'd consider looking into Wood Woads from Volo's after seeing your shambling mound video. Mainly because I was considering playing one that regained its free will after failing to protect the forest it was charged with from a shambling mound.

I often find minotaurs a good template to roughly re-skin to make new monsters.

one of the PCs in one of my games is a minotaur (based on a Highland cow, a long-haired redhead wearing a kilt) monk, using the discipline to control his bestial urges. His attacks are described as varied styles of headbutt plus hand attacks for the flurry portion.

I love playing Minotaur. they rock.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mr. Minotaur, you're SOOOOO scary. Guess what, you're still ribeye to me. A little garlic salt, some baked potato...yeah, you're delicious.

I have a campaign going where the Minotaur is a cursed tribe of nomads who defiled a god's grotto. The god punished them by merging them with the ox who pulled their wagons. The Minotaur race needs to appease the God, which is why my PC's Minotaur (Asterion) was looking for an adventuring party. If he can appease the god who cursed his people (the curse happened several generations ago) the curse will be lifted and his people restored.

18minute mark, Nocking Prone .. I grew up with bloody fist fights with my sibling and cousins along fought for a few years with foam weapons. If a minotaur head butts you in a fight, make a fort save vs 10+dmg deal or drop down on your backside. Also seeing short to mid size people try to deal with big people over six ft with a couple hundred lbs on them. You bump into them with normal or running speed like football or foam weapon fighting, you hit the ground, they don't move and fall down .. the other person does.

AJ Pickett I absolutely love your ecology videos.Could you do a few on setting of D&D Spelljammers.

Lost? Get yourself a Taur Taur navigation system and never lose your way again! _Not responsible for loss of limb, life, or property due to temperment of Taur Taur system._

I grew up on Krynn and Dragonlance being a klepto kender wizard borrowing as many objects as I could from the shiny tank, who needs a sword and a shield any how?

As a quick play get to know you thing in a new group I'm running the fast play ruined tower, tomb of alexus and wyvern falls with some modifications. Alaxus is known as the minotaur mage because he used minotaur as task masters for his empire. There are a few other examples of PC type minotaurs some being more goat- like (the brsinger series). Since demons don't create it could also be a lie where they corrupted lycanthropic were-bulls.

One bit of information, the island of Lantan was moved to Abeir during the Spellplague when the two worlds merged, and some areas from Abeir (such as the homeland of the dragonborn) were moved to Toril. When the Sundering happened, the worlds separated and all displaced lands were returned to their original location. Lantan itself was believed to have been sunken beneath the waves, but really it was just moved to Abeir. Of course a DM can say Lantan moved to Krynn, but the lore purist in me could never do that. Abeir and Toril are linked together in the lore going all the way back.

You are quite robust and healthy my dude

my first ever characterin dand just made him is aminotaur Barbarian who wasraised in adragonborn colony by the knightly order ofbahamut

Monsters as PCs!? I can't deal with XD.

Minotaurs should eat grass for sustenance because their biology most closely resembles cattle. Change my mind.

My Minotaur PC Faz Shaggybak is very badass he is a Death Kight by 3.5 rules

How would I go about taking a Minotaur and making it into a affected to affect other players

I did not know minitours could be a player race that could be fun to slip into my homebrew somewhere, could be a lot of fun to pair them with goliaths maybe like fierce rivals.

I know I'm a bit late to the comments but I feel the need to point out something. Battle axes, historically speaking, make for lousy tools. Sure, you could chop wood with one, but not nearly as well as you would with a proper wood axe and not much better than you could with a sword. Reason being is that the shape/geometry of an axe head differs between a wood axe and a battle axe. A wood axe has a head that's fairly broad and tapers like a wedge which helps it split the wood. A battle axe has fairly flat head with none of the wedge shape seen in the wood axe which helps it cut flesh. When used to cut wood, it would have a tendency to get stuck in the wood because of that flat blade. As far as heavier weapons for stronger characters/monsters goes, that's not necessarily a good thing, esp. if we're talking about something like a minotaur that's not that much bigger or massively stronger than a human. Having a normal size and weight weapon with higher strength means that you can wield and use that weapon for longer and hit harder too. If you equip a minotaur with a much heavier weapon, then the minotaur would only be able use it for about the same amount of time and hit about as hard as a human with a weapon of the same comparative size and weight. For example, say an average human can swing a 2 - 3 pound (average weight) arming sword X number of times a minute, you give a minotaur (or any other stronger monster type that's not giant sized) would be able to swing that same sword Y times more a minute because it would feel much lighter to that minotaur.

Kaz of the Axe, Kaz Dragonslayer.

I got a minitaur mini it's plastic and has a broken horn and a spiked mace .but I.used to have a hurloon minitaur mini from magic cards he had a axe and a person's head on his belt

30:00 really cool artwork

small question how bad are the complants about making a previously monsterus race into playable one

The image at 3:40 from a movie? Wouldn't mind seeing a cool movie minotaur.

Lantan disappeared for 100 years? And that is a good idea for how Minotaurs end up on Lantan. XD

I would love to see a video on the gorgon

I really want to play a fighter class champion. it would be epic!

Dragonlance is the first setting I ever read up on and wish I could get a 5e group going but it is a hard fight. I know it long lost but and would not ask you to do things for it.

My second game ever of DnD was taladas...(the continent on krynn). We were a group of castaways that get enslaved. Being an elf was no fun heh(it was total fun)...

The gnomes could have been transported to Sancrist Island if your going with the island on Krynn idea, that’s where the gnomes are on Krynn or at least their homeland

I played a minotaur barbarian he was one of the best characters i ever had

A suggestion for 5e to let get a speed bump that is reset after a short rest

In my campaigns, the Minotaur monster is a typical Minotaur. Player character minotaurs are huge humanoids with high levels of STR and CON rerolling to qualify for creating the character, I have a burdensome creation process for difficult qualifications... now almost ignored thanks to rerolling due to pocket devices. Minotaurs in my campaign, in typical form for the race, are a hulking race of beings that cannot even pass as humans under a cloak. They are akin to Drow in disfavor in adversity but not as easily hidden. They are immune to the Maze spell just because they know the way out because they knew the end before they got disconnected from reality. Whenever a PC Minotaur asks ANY directional action to the DM, the DM slips the player his instant knowledge. If the player is a nice guy, he can opt to let the DM let the entire party know as soon as he asks the questions. My players soon discover this low-level-only combat advantaged hated icon had long-lasting problem bypassing effects, just knowing what direction to take based on intent. It did lead to some quagmires and disagreements based on Minotaur player character different questions to the DM in the same party. Also, Minotaurs and other monstrous humanoids in shady "safe zones" really gouge the PC guys for armor fitting and clothing as well as nothing magical fits them unless they magically adjust size. Check through all your sources, very little magic items that are worn do that. Player characters are AWESOME on many levels, horrible on a lot more. So, I did not dilute their awesome relative to the other worlds' campaign level to making them relatively more human. They have real issues to deal with in my campaigns after their awesome low level boost.

My minotaurs are tall, athletic mountain herbivores. They tend to craft pieces of art that are a mixture of Spanish and Greek in style, and tend more towards isolationist views. They can be compared to dwarves in their great love for the arts and sciences.

the transformation of the minotaur is basic human psychology, spend enough time in a certain doctrine, develop it into your lifestyle

Question: Are Taurens from Azeroth considered a variant of Minotaur? One of the unique things about Krynn Minotaurs is that they were originally Ogres transformed by the Graygem. Which reminds me. You should make a video on the Graygem and its mutations, including up to its final reveal at the end of the Age of Despair, and the subsequent mutations of more races in the Age of Mortals. Your version of Dragonlance only goes up to 2nd edition, but there is a 3rd edition Dragonlance campaign setting. It's not as dated as you think. It's just your information that is not up to date. www.drivethrurpg.com/product/557/Age-of-Mortals-35

11:11, ahh my parents always said Tuna was "brainfood", I thought it looked kinda like brains.

I don't play dragonlance(yet) I've read literally every book though and I'm a hardcore nerd. I think that krynn minotaurs definitely fit into the forgotten realms setting. Just plop them in. Their society would fit perfectly within the other races. In fact I'm playing a minotaur barbarian in a 5e campaign right now. Love love love krynn minotaurs.

My opinion are all monsters are playable long they have int of 4 or above

dragonlance was probably one of the earliest series i started reading and their minotaurs were interesting not only for me because of how their culture primarily worshiped 2 gods one was the good the other evil yet their society usually isn't in constant conflict between the 2.which usually wouldn't think they couldn't function in a society though i suppose their lawful natures may explain that and both have some sense of honor and repsect towards each other. i also think their culture seems like a cross between roman and viking

There seems to be a continuity snarl in the D&D sources regarding how minotaurs propagate. In Dragon issue 116 notes that there are male and female minotaurs, whereas the Monstrous Manual states the minotaurs are only male. It notes that there are cursed minotaurs who were once human (implied to be fallen heroes like Death Knights, but perhaps they were Baphomet cultists?) and "natural" minotaurs who were the offspring of minotaurs and human females. Are all of these origins true, perhaps depending on which prime world they originate from?

Been using minotaurs since 2 to 3.5, came back and now 5e

There is an entire empire of Minotaurs on the continent of Taladas in Krynn(not Ansalon where the War of the Lance takes place) It is the largest civilization on that continent.