Liontaurs

(Please also read the Rules for ALL Taur PCs)

Racial Traits

• +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma, -2 Constitution
• Large: Liontaurs are large sized, taking up a 10x10 space
• Undersized Weapons (Ex) Although a liontaur is Large, its upper torso is the same size as that of a Medium humanoid. As a result, they wield weapons as if they were one size category smaller than their actual size (Medium for most liontaurs).
• Normal Speed: Liontaurs have a base speed of 40 feet.
• Natural Armor: Liontaurs have a +1 Natural Armor Bonus
• Racial feat: Toughness
• Natural Attacks: two paws for 1d4 damage (slashing, crit 20, x2)
• Rake (Ex): A liontaur gains extra natural attacks when it grapples its foe and when it uses the Woldian Liontaur Charge feat. Rake attacks are secondary attacks that are made at -5, or -2 with the Multattack feat. The damage caused by these attacks is 1d4+Str / 1d4+Str, with any other standard damage modifiers that apply. In addition to the options available to all grapplers, a liontaur with the rake ability gains two free claw attacks per round that it can use against a grappled foe. A liontaur in a grapple must begin its turn already grappling to use its rake — it can't begin a grapple and rake in the same turn.
• Low light vision
• Flexible: +2 Racial bonus on Acrobatics skill checks
• Sneaky: +2 Racial bonus on Stealth skill checks.
• Waterphobic: -2 penalty on Swim checks
• Dyslexic: -2 penalty on Linguistics checks
• Paws: Liontaurs have paws, and cannot use normal or magical footwear. They do not have the Foot slot.
• No Pants: Liontaurs may not wear normal or magical pants.
• Liontaur begin play speaking Liontaur and Tauric. Liontaur with high intelligence scores can choose from the following: Common, Minotaur, Centaur. Note that Liontaur do not automatically know Common.
• See this page for height, weight, and age.

Also check out the rules for optional Alternate Woldian Racial Traits.

Large Size

• AC: -1
• To Hit: -1
• +1 to CMB/CMD
• Fly Skill: -2
• Stealth Skill: -4
• Special attacks: Size bonuses often figure into special attacks.
• Carrying Capacity is tripled for liontaurs
• Liontaurs occupy a 10' space, and have a 5' reach.
• Armor for large quadrupeds weighs twice normal and costs four times normal (costs for magic enhancements are not doubled).

Liontaurs in Combat

Liontaurs use the same rules as all D&D and Pathfinder creatures for natural attacks and attacks with manufactured weapons. As a standard attack, liontaurs can make one paw attack or one weapon attack. As a full round attack, liontaurs can make usual weapon attacks and two secondary paw attacks at -5 to hit. Liontaurs can take the Multiattack feat to reduce this secondary attack penalty from -5 to -2. Liontaurs can also take a unique Liontaur Charge feat:

Liontaur Charge [Racial]

• Benefit: You may end a charge with a full attack, instead of a standard attack. If you have the Rake ability, you may add rake attacks to your full attack. A fighter may select Liontaur Charge as one of his fighter bonus feats.

Liontaur History

Domi created the Taur race long ago, a noble race that combined the best of the liontaurs, the centaurs, and the minotaurs. The original taurs spoke the Ancestral Taur language, These taurs were the youngest of the noble races. But they fell into ignobility, and they were sundered into centaur and minotaur and liontaur. The tale of that sundering is lost to myth and conjecture, but at least the three races all knew they were children of Domi.

The taur races lived together on the mainland, but over 400 years ago a small number of them set off, believing prophesies that the gods were going to destroy much of the northern continent. A small group of refugees made it to the Taur Isles, where they made island homes. Adapting from a hunter lifestyle to a seafaring existence. many liontaurs became merchants, trading among the taur communities on the islands. These liontaurs were responsible for instigating the great Taur Civil War, which pitted centaur against minotaur, while the liontaur merchants profited from both. The role of the liontaurs in starting the war was long a secret, but in recent years word has trickled out. At the end of that war, the taur races were sundered further, each segregated on its own island. Some say the liontaurs were punished most for their betrayal of their kin, exiled to the smallest of the Taur Isles, and plagued by hell hounds.

At this time, some liontaurs chose to return to the old ways, hunting, herding, and gathering, living in no one settled place. Others flocked to an evil queen, who wielded a black sword. She was known as the Veiled Queen, and her name was Motina, priestess of the Sunsetter Clan. With the black sword she united all the clans of Liontaur Isle, and she raised a pyramid-palace in the west of the island. With her death, the clans broke apart, and the Veiled Queen passed out of memory.

Then the mercantile liontaurs founded a new town on the east end of Liontaur Isle, called, in common, Chessford; and in wemic, as the liontaurs name themselves and their language in their own tongue, Velawia. Several prosperous merchant clans are based there. The houses in the township are organized by clan. These houses are big rambling structures, windowless on the outside, with windows looking in on inner courtyards. The construction is stone for the most part, and each house is like a small keep, because of the danger of hell hound raids. The clan houses tend to get poorer and less prestigious as you get farther from the center of the township. About 5,000 liontaurs live in Chessford, though many are out to sea at any given moment.

Elsewhere on the isle, wemics live a more tribal, herding life, rejecting the merchant life that some say was the source of their downfall. But the biggest prey to hunt on the Isle (aside from hell hounds) are deer and wild sheep. There are no big predators, like wolves or bears. So the wemics (some of them, anyway) dream of leaving the island, returning to the Northern Continent that was their ancient home, and hunting worthy prey again. But they cannot, because the North was devastated by the Great Cataclysm, and because they have not finished their penance -- to reunite the Taur races in peace. Read more about these Liontaurs in the Outback.

Liontaurs don't grow grapes or make Purple or Blue Wine, but they have a fondness for it and a greater-than-other-humanoids tolerance for these potent potables (as do minotaurs and centaurs.) Some liontaurs are fond of tobacco and long-stemmed pipes.

They never use the Ride skill because there is no domesticated animal large enough for them to ride. They generally feel that it is beneath themselves to serve as mounts for other races.

Liontaurs honor Domi as the lord of the hunt. They call him Tomi, because in some liontaur dialects the "d" sound is missing. In their own language, liontaurs call themselves "wemics."

Liontaurs are not natural island-dwellers -- they love wide open plains and vast savannah. One reason that the liontaur population remains low is because their island just can't support very many creatures with liontaur bulk and meat requirements. And there is another hazard on the island of the liontaurs, more deadly than overpopulation and scant resources. Hellhounds have ripped through the liontaur population, and many have died.

Physical Description

While Wolidan liontaurs are half man and half great cat, these people vary widely in appearance. Their top half appears to be human with varied skin tones, usually deeply tanned. Their lower bodies have the form and coloration of great cats, usually mighty lions, but sometimes even one might have the appearance of a muscled tiger, a sleek puma, or a swift jaguar. Liontaur facial hair is often a similar color as the fur on their lower bodies. Some liontaurs have very human looking eyes while others tend toward the golds and greens and blues of the cats common to their lower half. Similarly, while liontaur features tend to be broad, the overall bulk of their bodies is influenced by the size of their great cat bodies. Thus, while an average liontaur stands nearly 7 feet tall and weighs as much as 1,100 pounds, there are vast regional variations—from lean jungle hunters to burly plains cats.

Liontaur Personality

Liontaurs were always a proud people, and these island-dwelling liontaurs are even prouder, like small people everywhere who have had to fight against great hardship just to survive. Liontaurs see themselves as naturally superior to other folk, but the best of them are noble and gracious to lesser races, not haughty or boastful.

Liontaurs are predators. They specialize in selecting and hunting prey. Some liontaurs, having adapted to their new island home, have become skilled traders. They have put their hunting instincts to good use, outsmarting marks and pouncing on bargains. They wait patiently for the right moment, then move swiftly for the metaphorical kill.

Other liontaurs have remained hunters in the true sense, tracking prints, finding trails, lying in wait, and then rushing to the kill. These tend to live in the small inland interior of the island, and they look down on their more civilized kin.

Liontaur Tale

Here is a story about a meeting of two liontaurs.