My pet peeve: alseids, cecaelia, alacorns, *taurs, and other misused and invented monster names

So a common pet peeve of mine is when Pathfinder bestiaries get etymology and mythology wrong, because this tends to bleed over into discussions of actual mythology and result in tons of misinformation being spread.

Here are a few examples:

• In Greek myth, the alseides are the dryads of groves, who liked pranking travelers. They were not deer-centaurs, that's WarCraft's dryads.
• The cecaelia, an octopus-mermaid, is not a mythological creature. 
• The alacorn, a winged unicorn, is not a mythological creature either. However, the "Ethiopian Pegasus" was a breed of winged horned horse recounted in the natural histories of Pliny.
• The centaurs are self-explanatory, though the term itself is used more freely in Greek myth to refer to more than just the horse/men hybrids. Weirdly, the word taur (literally "bull" in Latin) is used to describes centaurs with non-equine lower halves, even though the word centaur already served that role in Greek myth. E.g. horse-centaur, fish-centaur, bull-centaur, etc.

I don't know why, but I really don't like it when people invent nonsense names when they could just use regular words like "deer-centaur," "octopus-mermaid," "winged unicorn," etc.

Sorry for the repetitive and probably pointless posting. I'll try to do better next time.

tribes of the centaurs, part 6: the fused riders

During my research, I have come across mentions of centaurs which resemble a rider fused to his horse rather than a human torso replacing the horse's head. These include the Black Devil of Yucatan and Shoshone myth, the Nuckelavee of Orcadian myth, and the the todorac (plural todorci) of Slavic myth.

The Black Devil is described slightly differently by region: "A jet-black Centaur in the mythology of the Mayan Indians of the Yucatan" and "A jet-black stallion of Shoshone Indian myth. The Black Devil has fiery red eyes and sharp teeth. It is said to stalk and eat humans." I could not find any other references to the Black Devil in my research. I notice slight visual similarities to the cadejo of Central American folklore, which sometimes appears in forms resembling black horses.

The Nuckelavee is a grotesque monster resembling a fusion of horse and rider without skin. It has flippers instead of hooves, a single huge eye in the horse head, arms that reach to the ground, and its human head is huge and hangs off its neck. It causes all sorts of misfortune such as plagues and disasters, but as a sea monster it may be repelled with fresh water. It seems fairly well-known in English during my research. It appears in Pathfinder as a fey monster.

The todorac (Cyrillic: Тодорац, plural Тодорци) is a demonic horse/rider fusion that seems inexplicably associated with Saint Theodore Tyron's Day. I couldn't find much information on them in English, but they appear to have an article on the Serbian Wikipedia. They appear in a folk motif in which a girl in a mill or cemetery is threatened by one with having her organs wound on an iron reel.

Sources

• Giants, Monsters, and Dragons: An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend, and Myth by Carol Rose
• The Black-man of Zinacantan by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy
• "Cult of the Saint in the Balkans" by Mirjana Detelic

Tribes of the centaurs, part 5: the horse-footed

Some medieval bestiaries described centaurs with only two legs instead of four, similar to satyrs.

Tribes of the centaurs, part 4: the beautiful centaurs

The callicantzaros (plural callicantzari) is a kind of fairy goblin in Balkan folklore with some similarities to vampires. It is included in this series because its name is speculated to derive from kalos-kentauros meaning "beautiful centaur," although this etymology is hotly contested.

What is a gorgotaur?

While skimming books and searching the web I came across the invented word gorgotaur. Etymologically, it is a combination of the Ancient Greek gorgos ("terrible, fierce") and tauros ("bull"); thus, it literally translates as "terrible bull."

It could also be considered a combination with centaur instead, due to mistakenly assuming that taur means "a centaur-like creature" rather than a bull. Interestingly enough, some ancient art of Medusa depicts her as a centauress.

D&D made the weird choice of depicting a toxic iron bull as a "gorgon," despite more closely resembling the mythical catoblepas, so to avoid confusion I will use the unambiguous terms medusa and iron bull instead.

I have seen the word gorgotaur used rarely in a couple examples. In the roleplaying game Mazes & Minotaurs, the gorgotaur is a heavily mutated or primordial minotaur; among other features, it has hooves instead of hands (examples @ grieksegids.nl and clipart.com). In the supplements Encyclopaedia Arcane: Crossbreeding and Monster Geographica Underground, a gorgotaur is a hybrid of minotaur and iron bull. Speaking of hybrids, Book of Templates Deluxe Edition 3.5 introduced a half-iron bull or "demigorgon" template.

The name may be analyzed in other ways besides the three mentioned above. Perhaps a combination of an iron bull and a centaur or bucentaur? Maybe a combination of minotaur, iron bull and (bu)centaur? Maybe a combination of a medusa (i.e. Greek gorgon) and a minotaur?

So that gives us about six varieties to start with: a centauress with snakes for hair who gazes turns onlookers to stone, a grotesque and bestial minotaur, a minotaur with iron hide and toxic breath, a centaur whose lower body is a bull with iron hide and exhales toxic fumes, the preceding with the head of a bull, and a minotaur with a mane of snakes whose gaze turns onlookers to stone.

Tribes of the centaurs, part 3: the other centaurs

Although commonly depicted with equine halves, centaurs have since been expanded to cover a variety of animal halves. Some of these have precedent in mythology, while others are wholly modern inventions. These include the bull-centaur, fish-centaur, winged centaur and leonine-centaur, the subjects of this post. More below the break...

Tribes of the centaurs, part 2: the horse-centaurs

As I explained in part 1 of this series, Greek myth posited that the centaurs are divided into a number of tribes. The ixionidae are descended from Ixion: his son(s) the Centaur or centaurs sired the hippocentaurs (horse-centaurs) on the Magnesian mares. However, there were a few tribes of hippocentaurs without a common origin. More below the break...

Fantasy physics and real world biology

I have written before that I have a preference for pre-modern science in my fantasy settings, mostly because very few settings do aside from Exalted and RuneQuest. My homebrew in progress has an animistic cosmology, morally ambiguous law/chaos conflict, spontaneous generation, four humors, diseases caused by evil spirits, and no binary distinction between magic and mundane skillsets. In contrast, D&D and its derivatives are the poster child for gratuitous biology explanations.

Tribes of the centaurs, part 1: The Ixionides

In Greek mythology, centaurs were much more diverse than modern writers give them credit for. This will be the first in a series of articles exploring the diversity of centaurs in mythology and how this may be recycled for gaming purposes. The myth of the centaurs, like most Greek myths, has many variants. This post will explore one, specifically their origin.

The centaur problem

What I call the "centaur problem," by analogy with the mermaid problem, refers to the anatomical difficulties brought up by centaur anatomy. There is a vast disparity between human hips and equine shoulders, and typical depictions of the centaur ignore the plethora of problems brought up by the junction between the centaur's human and equine halves. In this post, I will briefly explore the anatomy of centaurs in art and myth, the anatomical difficulties of the junction, and an attempt to explain the junction.

Fantastical humanoids

Much like the distinction between beasts and monstrosities, the distinction between humanoids and monstrosities is arbitrary. I suspect this may be due to poor editing but I cannot be sure.

Merfolk are labeled humanoids despite having a tail in place of legs, when the description for the humanoid type specifies humanoids are bipedal. Centaurs are labeled monstrosities rather than humanoids because they are quadrupedal and/or large size, despite being neither unnatural nor malevolent. Yetis are labeled monstrosities rather than giants because... I cannot think of any logic behind that.

Maybe we should have a tag like "Honorary Humanoid: As a PC, you are susceptible to magics and effects that are stipulated for "humanoids" even though, as a species, you are not." Maybe?

Nymphomaniacs: centaurs, satyrs and tritons

A little house rule I am introducing is in regard to single gender monsters: there are no monsters which consist solely of one gender and especially not ones which must reproduce by non-consensual relations with humans. That is supremely creepy and has no place in a group activity like tabletop roleplaying games.

My go to example are centaurs, satyrs and tritons in their original sense as wild male nature spirits in Greek mythology. These three dudes are now fey (see 13th Age Monthly Vol 2) and are the male counterparts of nymphs, hags and other female fey. They are all the same species which display great physical differences based on their gender and other factors.

I will be adopting this sort of model for all my monster ecology. That said, the human superpower is still that they can have kids with lots of weird creatures. I just prefer not to dwell on creepy or fetish material. Call me a social justice warrior if you like, but I will not budge.