Monday, March 17, 2008

The Meat Bull

In the Squawk Role-Playing Game a Minotaur is a large, intelligent, carnivorous theropod dinosaur related to Tyrannosaurus. Minotaurs are covered in simple fur-like feathers, and have a pair of large curved horns sprouting from over each eye. Minotaurs have short but well-developed and relatively dextrous forearms with three-fingered hands. These hands can be used to hold weapons, but the leverage to swing the weapon comes from the Minotaur's powerful legs and body.

Minotaurs prefer long, pole-arm weapons, which they can hold in the middle allowing them to strike with both ends. The following picture shows a minotaur with an unusual short-handled sword and lamellar armor. This Minotaur is creeping along in a low crouch actually walking on it's heels, but minotaurs normally walk on their toes like other theropods.

Long horns is very unusual for a predator. The idea of a horned theropod comes from a real-life dinosaur called Carnotaurus, which has large horns over each eye (but much shorter horns than the Squawk Minotaur.) Older Minotaur drawings have straighter horns and a combination of a feathery mane with patterns of scales found in Carnotaurus skin impressions.

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