Back with Best of the Bestiary, and what do we have? Another monster of Greek mythology! Hopefully this one will fare a little better than the last few have.
Lore: Labyrinthine Predators of a Demonic Cult
Born via demonic ritual, a minotaur is a savage monster that lives for the thrill of the hunt. Solitary carnivores, they can usually be found in maze-like dungeons or caves, ancient forests, or sometimes even within complicated city streets. While a normal creature might become lost within these domains, a minotaur is capable of determining every possible route it can take to reach its prey. Aside from ambushes, it cares little for tactics, instead letting the scent of blood and the sound of tearing flesh and breaking bones drive it into a blood frenzy.
Minotaurs descend from humanoid cultists who long ago rejected an oppressive authority and used ritual magic to, quote, ‘return to nature.’ These cults are often confused for druidic circles, a mistake which few live to regret as they enter their ceremony of entering a labyrinth while wearing ceremonial animal masks. Within these labyrinths, cultists wildly enjoy killing and hunting right until the end, where a human sacrifice is made, often of one who realized the cult’s true nature.
Baphomet, the Horned King and a demon lord, is the ruler of these cults. He resides within a gigantic labyrinth deep within the Abyss. Sometimes, he will answer the prayers of his followers by transforming them into a minotaur. From there, he will enjoy listening to their wails of bloodlust and agony.
That was… surprisingly horrific. And surprisingly interesting! You can make one hell of a horror session with this! Imagine: the players are lured into a maze by a friendly-seeming druidic circle; within, they slowly descend deeper and deeper into darkness, finding more and more gore and horrors until ultimately a minotaur comes upon them for the climactic finale! Or you could come up with a way to integrate this into a Baphomet-themed campaign. Either way, this lore has some pretty good storytelling potential!
Design: Exactly What You Expect
You know, given how horrific the lore was, I was kind of expecting something… I dunno… Interesting?
What you see is what you get here. Surprise! It’s a minotaur. Mr. Bull-Man. Nothing new or unique is done with it. While the lore is a massive departure from the monster’s Greek roots, the design sticks to those like glue.
God dammit, it’s Medusa all over again!
Stats: A True Barbarian
If one of your players is a Barbarian, they are required to have a dick-measuring contest with the minotaur in-game. That’s a D&D law. Don’t look it up, just trust me, it’s totally legit.
As that crass joke might imply, the minotaur is a very straight-forward monster. It hits you until you die so you need to hit it until it dies. Not an easy task; while its AC is low, it’s HP is fairly decent, and its two attacks each hit like a freight train going full speed.
Not to mention that it has a few abilities to help make it a bit more interesting than the average slugfest. For one, its Charge ability gives the minotaur’s already monstrous hits even more power and can knock the victim prone, provided they fail the saving throw; all he needs to do is get a running start. With Reckless, the minotaur gains advantage on all melee attacks it rolls that turn, but at the cost of giving the players advantage on all of their melee attacks (again: this thing is literally just a Barbarian). And finally, its third ability, Labyrinthine Recall: this allows it to perfectly recall the layout of any path it has traveled, making escape from the monster rather difficult.
Those three abilities save this from being a mindless slugfest and make it a fairly interesting and dynamic fight. Suddenly, the players need to be mindful of their spacing in regards to the minotaur, take advantage of opportunity attacks should it leave their range to charge another player, and puts the maze-like terrain against them trying to flee. If executed properly, it can make for a super cool boss fight!
*Fun little story: I was playing a Lizardfolk Barbarian in a campaign a while back, and we had to steal a minotaur horn for a quest. After the minotaur took me to single digit HP in one attack, everyone started panicking. So my character goes straight for the horn with his gator-jaws, rolls a nat-20, and snaps the horn right off. From there, we all went into ‘get-the-hell-out-of-there’ mode and made a terrified escape. This isn’t important to the ranking in any way, I just thought I’d share that.*
Placement
The minotaur is a surprisingly interesting monster. It’s lore is downright horrific and its stats can make for a straight-forward but dynamic and engaging boss fight. However, its design is a massive letdown and definitely drags this guy down the ranking.
With all that in mind, let’s put the Minotaur on the Best of the Bestiary!
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- Minotaur <——————–
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