Civilized Centaurs: How would you make them different?

[Cyclops08]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCzF870MSv4
The link above is a great study of the standard DnD Centaur (it is 44 minutes long, but it is very good).

I want civilized centaurs. They have nations, make war with one another, live in cities, and do all the things humans do.

Centaurs have +2 to strength and with levels can gain a natural STR of 22 (max). They have +1 to CON. Centaurs are BIG. They do not have the great swaying belly of a horse, they cannot digest grass. They eat the same things as a human can so their stomachs are like the Disney versions, more like a greyhound than a horse.


I see the cities are Greek/Roman in style with grand stone buildings and tall columns. They are farmers, herders, and brewers. They spend a lot of effort making heavy concentrated pemmican style foods that can last for decades. They dislike being underground/mining, and deal with dwarves who will do the job for a 40% cut. Centaur nations always have Populations of halflings and dwarves as a result. They trade extensively with elves.

The race is not all that magical. they prefer to rely on elves for arcane magic. The clerics usually venerate elven deities, or Dionysus/Roman/Greek deities. There are a large number of Centaur Warlocks with the Arch Fey patron. Centaur arcanists tend to be sorcerers.

Ramps take the place of stairs in their cities.
Q) What other distinctive features would a centaur city have?
Q) What would they have/make to trade with? What would they need to import? What would centaurs have that would be unique to them?

[Mechalich]

Centaurs have +2 to strength and with levels can gain a natural STR of 22 (max). They have +1 to CON. Centaurs are BIG. They do not have the great swaying belly of a horse, they cannot digest grass. They eat the same things as a human can so their stomachs are like the Disney versions, more like a greyhound than a horse.

I do not see any reason why Centaurs should not have hindgut fermentation and thereby be able to digest cellulose. Yes their colon is smaller than those in modern horse breeds (but of course, early horses were rather smaller and sleeker than modern ones in many cases) but colonic fermentation is found in much smaller perissodactyls such as donkeys and various extinct animals.

Now, it is likely that centaurs would struggle with the digestion of grass, specifically, because they have human teeth, not the high-crowned chompers of horses and their relatives and a grass-heavy diet would ruin those in short order, but there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to handle large quantities of softer forage. Centaurs are listed as forest-dwellers for some reason, so perhaps they consume large quantities of understory ferns.

[inuyasha]

The only time I've changed centaurs was the time that I used them in a Ravenloft game, making them mist wanderers that replaced the Vistani. My players thought it was really cool!

[Yanagi]

Buildings interior would probably be more open design and few hallways, because they're large quadripeds and a 180' pivot isn't takes more maneuvering than it does for a biped. And just in general, any building intended for occupancy would need more square footage per occupant and higher ceilings. The most basic urban housing would probably resemble a stable--a big room subdivided into berths.

Ramps don't ascend vertically as quick as stairs, steep ramps would be a hazard, so multi-story anything would require lot of extra space set aside for the ramp ascent (look at wheelchair ramps). This would lead to distinct design choices that made centaur communities look different: wealth would be a big sprawling single-floor domicile, and the cheap multistory housing could be eyeballed by how drastic the rise-versus-run was.

In addition to size, centaur weight would determine design. Shoddy construction is a different thing when you're talking about every single adult occupant and commuter being 1000 lbs or more. Slum housing and shoddy buildings thrown up in haste relied on the comparative rate of revenue extracted to failure guaranteed by wear and tear. With a horse-man five times the weight of a person, that failure of bad joists or cheap materials is going to happen faster and more precipitously. Weirdly, this might result in an anachronistic emphasis on building regulation, so any large centaur community would have strict standards about construction and liability. (The slums would be for the bipeds. Heh.)

Weight plus hooves would also mean that streets would be different. A dirt track would just get chewed up and cobbles don't do well with hoove, so maybe cultivated heavy grass would be preferable. Where biped cities specifically clear away scrub, open spaces and thoroughfares in a centaur city might specific have high grass (like on the steppes) cultivated and maintained. All in all, a centaur settlement layout might look more like a modern city--central plaza, grid structure, lots of parks--skipping over the period of "cram buildings in at random, build up as fast as possible" from pure mechanical necessity.

If they could travel at speed for the same duration as horses, centaurs would also have a very different sense of central-distal relations, so there'd be less incentive to create incredibly dense urban zones. "Rural" wouldn't necessarily be as intensely isolated and "urban" as crowded and dirty. A town might be more like a suburb in a wooded area than an ancient walled city.

Absent chairs, I find myself wondering what furnishings would be like in general. Things like desks and tables would be built for standing height. Maybe backless couches and low tables would be luxury relaxation, sort of Roman style?

Certain bits of horse riding equipment would have equivalents in centaur material culture...saddle bags to carry heavy goods, saddle blankets to protect the back against chafing, splint boots and skid boots to protect the legs during labor, et cetera. Harness devices would be adapted for personal uses...self-pulled plows, carts for pulling big loads. Carting would probably be a profession equivalent to rickshaw pulling.

Would shoeing happen? I don't know horses well enough to understand hoof care in detail, but depending on the roads and surfaces I think hoof boots would be an practical item.

Imports wouldn't really be a factor just of creature type...generally those things have to do with what needs the environment doesn't sufficiently provide. But each centaur would need a lot of food and water to subsist, and that would be the most basic pressure on any community where they developed beyond working to feed themselves and shifting to specialized labor.

Exports would also be a function of the available raw materials and skilled labor, rather than creature type. But the obvious centaur exports would be...any services a mounted person supplied. Goods transport, messenger services, mercenary cavalry, road security. There'd also be skilled and unskilled labor where their strength would be an asset...timber forestry, masonry, metal work.

[Cyclops08]

They spend a lot of effort making heavy concentrated pemmican style foods that can last for decades.

While this would be a necessity for any traveling centaur...it could also be a major export as well. Concentrated food that can last 20 years without refrigeration could feed armies, colonists and adventurers everywhere.

There was a native tribe in the American midwest that made a living (read: got rich) making/selling Pemican that literally fed the westward settlers for two generations. Survival food like that is essential to any expanding nation.

[Cyclops08]

@ Yanagi
Good points. I can see smaller cities and trade up to a LOT of smaller towns. an agricultural society needs a LOT of food processing.

Necessity is the mother of invention. It could be possible that civilized Centaurs invented canning/food preservation.

Preserved foods of all sorts could be a specialty export.
~~as would be Mercenaries.

A centaur cavalry would be devastating on the battlefield. They would be ten times more maneuverable a horse cavalry...and far better trained. From hit and run archery to heavy lancers...they could be a sobering sight on the field.

I do not see Centaurs working on sailing ships at all. That would be something left to bipeds. But Caravan escorts? Yes!

[sktarq]

I do not see any reason why Centaurs should not have hindgut fermentation and thereby be able to digest cellulose....Now, it is likely that centaurs would struggle with the digestion of grass, specifically, because they have human teeth....

And this is where grasses could well make a large portion of their diet via the human part having no reason I can see for not being able to use tools....Mills to turn hard to chew grasses into gut ready high surface area powers or mulches could cut that right out....Sure the barbarian centaurs may have been more limited to ferns, shoots, etc but no reason to think so with the modern ones.

One of the questions that will come up pretty early is going to be manure....which was a big enough issue with human cities but will another order of scale for centaurs if they have anything like an even partially horselike digestive system (and honestly where the transfer happens they could well have both a humanlike and horselike system in sequence)

also --- I figure picking stuff up off the ground is a bit of a pain for centaurs with their structure....so their would probably be a lot more stuff on desks, tables, etc.

[Honest Tiefling]

The only time I've changed centaurs was the time that I used them in a Ravenloft game, making them mist wanderers that replaced the Vistani. My players thought it was really cool!

That does seem pretty cool. YOINK!

Through...What if they lived amongst bipedal species, maybe in the same house? Getting stuff off of the floor would be a lot easier if you have a halfling buddy to take care of it. Upper floors could be more cheaply made if you stuff it full of dwarves/elves/halflings.

The centaurs could offer a really skilled cavalry and horse back archers (not like they need to shoot around a horse's head, after all) and be heavily specialized within a multi-race nation, instead of a centaur nation. They already don't do the mining, so why not leave more to races better suited to it?

Also, if you play a game with a centaur, someone within the party is going to try to ride it. Just saying. You should address the cultural implications of that.

Maybe I'm just too sick and out of it, but you don't seem to address the number of clerics/druids they would have. Plant Growth is a very useful spell that could help a species with a high nutrient requirement. If they don't eat grass, they will need SOMETHING to replace those calories. Their skeletal structure would also make me think they'd need a lot of calcium from something or another.

[Yanagi]

an agricultural society needs a LOT of food processing. Necessity is the mother of invention. It could be possible that civilized Centaurs invented canning/food preservation.

Preserved foods of all sorts could be a specialty export.

You specifically mention brewing as a skillset for your particular version, which means they grasp fermentation...which is also preservation. These things are garnishes or health foods in modern times, but in the past stuff like pickles and yogurt (both lactobacillus cultures) were ways of keeping food goods and extracting more nutrition. Fermented milk--kefir and yogurt and simple cheeses--was a vital staple of Asian steppe peoples equivalent to pemmicans. Fermented goods like vinegar, soy sauce, garum, and koji derivatives were some of the first foodstuffs to be mass-produced and widely distributed, and refined aged/cured meats and cheeses--some of the first luxury items.

I point this out because...I'm a food nerd and especially love the history of fermenting...but also because it's way a of taking this hypothetical culture and making it a little more complicated in ways that could explain "civilized" developments like urban centers, money economy, internal markets and external trade. They're the grain basket culture, they're the applied science culture. Which sounds a bit lame, but in folklore and myths there's a lot of stories about deities and people that make food, grow food, and invent the technology of agriculture...they just don't get the front center stage in RPG settings where background generally exists to explain conflict and the cultural and spiritual needs of murder hoboes. Elves, dwarves, etc are all fitted loosely into folklore tropes, if not archetypes...but the vacant trope is "the people who feed everyone."

Another thing to consider would be...medicine and healing. Because in a game of "six degrees of history/folklore mashup" that's the next thematic element that crops up. Plant-wisdom ties together agriculture and herbology, culturing and fermenting produced a lot of the earlier "medicines" (infusions, tinctures, nutrition). There's also the specific mythic character Chiron, who was basically a centaur polymath, but notable as a physician who trained Asclepius and as one of the few "civilized" centaurs in Hellenic myths.

While you mentioned Greco-Roman trappings, but I think it's worth considering a scatter-plot of references and themes to flesh out the culture. A lot of what's influencing my thinking about farmers and healers is the way the ancient Greeks talked about the ancient Egyptians--who were the grain basket of the Mediterranean culture--as philosophers, physicians. Indeed a lot of Greek natural philosophers cite unnamed Egyptians as influences. RPG Egypt is basically ceremonial Egypt through the lens of penny dreadfuls...mummies, curses, and pyramids (#murderhobogoals)...but when I was kid I read the tale of Khun-anap and it stuck with me that there was another story to be told about the same place. There's also an architecture aspect: go look at the big temple complexes at Karnak or Luxor. In keeping with my observation about big critters needing space and how that would effect design...I think their high architecture--temples and palaces--would look more like the open design and incorporated gardens and pools of Egyptian temple precincts (and later later Arab and North African design).

Given that you're describing a mix of herding and farming, I'd consider looking at a few other locations for cultural ideas.

One would be the Crimea--the Central Asia grain basket poised next to the steppe--and specifically the Tatars and the their neighbors. Traditionally centaurs are "wild" and warlike in ways that resemble pastoral nomads (who also become raiders), and the Tatars are steppe folk who settled and sort of built a compromise culture with sedentary norms but always connected to a nomadic worldview. Steppe people and horse culture are so synonymous that there are folklorists who propose that centaurs are folkloric glosses of Greek-era horse nomads (like the Parthians and Scythians) and steppes are literally where the horses are from. The Tatars also present as case study in how settling to create civil society isn't always...civil. They were effectively horse mercenaries for nearby nations--mostly the Turks, but sometimes the Russians--but also harassed and subjugated the fully sedentary groups that lived nearby (like the Ukranians and Circassians). So those dwarves and halflings could be more like...mining serfs and domestic indentures, respective, if the local centaurs leaned toward the authoritarian or cruel.

Another location to consider looking at--same thing as the Tatars, a people split between sedentarism and nomadism, with a horse warrior thing--would be the Berber population of Maghreb in general--which fed the Roman Empire--and Morocco in particular. There's this crazy abutment of the Sahara with the Atlas Mountains with the Mediterranean Coast and the Atlantic Coast that creates a highly varied physical landscape. It used to be the place that everything grew...grain, olives, all kinds of fruit...and its exports didn't just feed the Roman Empire but determined the course of the cuisine. The Berbers are just all through history: they're the Numidians whose cavalry fought with Carthage, then against Carthage, then against Rome in the Jugurthian Wars. They're the "Moors" who invaded Sicily and Iberia and established to Almohad Caliphate. They're the Tuareg that caravaned salt into the African interior, created kingdoms in Mali, were a major pipeline for Ottoman slavery.

Lots of trivia stuff to flesh out a people. The cultural preponderance of indigo clothing. A cool alphabet. Mummies buried with ostrich eggs in domed mounds. Marabout saints. Magic swords made by blacksmiths who speak a secret language.

Material culture stuff like tattoos and henna body art, textiles and jewelry, (what are centaurs wearing and decorating themselves with? Answer: not pants) carpets (no chairs, no beds, portable if you're a nomad...carpets are going to be what these folks rest on, and display wealth with by displaying).

_{Stop me before I nerd out on how under-served this region is by fantasy.}

This is stretching long and I'm indulging myself, but keep digging around and you'll find odd details that would fit into your "civilized" centaurs in general and your specific questions about trade. Look at the Spice Road through central Asia. Afghanistan and specifically the history of Kabul. The Pueblo people for farming and their neighbors the Apache for raiding. Maize religion in the Americas--specifically Xipe Totec and the Seven Sisters. The Gun-Yu myth.

Good hunting.

[Weirdlet]

I was going to point out the indie comic by Donna Barr, "Stinz," where there's a small population of centaurs living as landed farmers up in an Alpine valley- but there's so much interesting stuff going on in this thread already!

[lightningcat]

Buildings interior would probably be more open design and few hallways, because they're large quadripeds and a 180' pivot isn't takes more maneuvering than it does for a biped. And just in general, any building intended for occupancy would need more square footage per occupant and higher ceilings. The most basic urban housing would probably resemble a stable--a big room subdivided into berths.

Communal buildings would likely only be a larged roofed area, with tarp walls for bad weather situations.

Absent chairs, I find myself wondering what furnishings would be like in general. Things like desks and tables would be built for standing height. Maybe backless couches and low tables would be luxury relaxation, sort of Roman style?

Less likely low couches, and more likely really thick pads - like oversized dog beds. In fact it would be rare to find anything lower then 2 foot unless it was for use when laying down. While most other things would be a bit taller than normal for a standing human. Standing up and laying down is akward for them, so laying down would be for saved for when they are resting or staying in place for a longer period of time. They also do not need to lay down to sleep,

Would shoeing happen? I don't know horses well enough to understand hoof care in detail, but depending on the roads and surfaces I think hoof boots would be an practical item.

Horseshoes are the equivalent to work or hiking boots. But centaurs would need to wory about their hooves even if they didn't get shoes. The ferrier would be as much manicurist as anything else, and would likely be the center of the social scene.

In fact, due to their build, centaurs would need to be much more social than humans. A centaur would have a hard time reaching anything around his hindquarters. A single centaur might be stronger than a human, but without assistance to get into a heavy duty harness, he lacks the effective strength of a horse. Likewise, complete grooming would require assistance. Cleaning burrs out of a tail without help would be one of the most annoying wastes of time in the world.