Different kind of horses... (Patreon)

I'd really hoped to have a finished Homelands chapter to share, but RL doesn't let us have nice things in a timely manner.  I shared some the world known as Quintus back in the past. Since I don't have 26 done, I figured I'd share this worldbuilding from that setting instead.  Many stories have elves and dwarves, but I don't know many settings with centaurs.  (Okay, Centaurworld.  I know.  Good series, btw.  :3 )

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While humans, dwarves, and elves are the most well known and widely established races of the Ith, they are not the only ones that survived the Shattering.  The taurine were, like the others, created by the Ith to serve as messengers, outdoor labourers, and later as warriors in their bloodsports.  When the shattering occurred, only one sizeable population endured in the far north of what would become lithicus.  Over the many centuries, it has diversified to become the predominate inhabitants of that region.

All taurine posses six limbs, four legs and two arms.  Their sizes vary from 150cm to 300 cm and weights can range from 80 kg to over 400 kg.  They are noted for their humanoid torsos with pointed, elf like ears.  While some have attempted to lump them in with other beastfolk, no beastfolk has ever given birth to a taurine, nor have they ever been discovered birthed from a feral parent, like beastfolk.  As a result, taurine are considered a true souled species by most civilizations.  This has not stopped some beastfolk from claiming to be taurine, like the infamous auroch-folk of the island of Min claiming to be 'minotaurs'.

The most widely known are the centaurs, taking their prefix from the Cenna river and their ancient ancestor Centra the Builder, who was responsible for building the ancient settlement at the mouth of the river following the Shattering.  While some evidence shows the presence of other races, and some contend that Centra was a dwarf and not a taurine at all, Centra is acknowledged as a mythic and revered ancestor.

While human proproganda often depict centaurs as wild, beastial brutes, the reality is centaurs are as civilized and intelligent as any humans.  They tend towards agricultural and forestry oriented villages, but will also operate open pit mines when practical.  Centaur families are extended, fluid, and mildly polyamourous.  One to three females will pair up with a male of their choosing and form a family.  Young remain for fifteen to twenty five years before leaving to start their own life.  Elders live with a child in their twilight years.  Stallions often pair up as well in homosexual households, with little stigma.  A solitary centaur is generally seen as an aberration and villages will work to set them up with somebody.

Clothes, for centaurs, are a matter of practicality, not modesty.  In the summer, most with only wear clothes necessary for work.  Given their equine endowments, concealment is often not worth the discomfort, and centaurs are generally comfortable enough with their bodies not to care.  In winter, centaurs cover up extensively.  Coats that cover their bodies entirely are broken out.  In spring and fall, only the torso may be garbed.  Centaurs tend to prefer greens, yellows, and reds.

Centaur youths are highly competitive.  Colts and fillies alike wrestle, race, and compare skills with bows, javelins, and lances.  Losers are not humiliated, but are expected to take on a more supportive role.  Winners are rewarded with honors, and this leads to attrition with accidents or conflicts.  By adulthood, most of this vigor is expected to be set aside for more mature work either on a farm or in a trade.  Centaurs who refuse to mature and are overly aggressive may be forced to leave until they do.

While some centaurs live in temporary tents, most prefer permanent homes built around a public plot of land for farming.  This land is considered sacrosanct and its produce is for mutual survival.  Larger towns may have multiple public plots surrounded by homes. Centaurs tend to live in wood frame houses insulated with hay and roofed in slate.  Replacing a roof is a serious endeavor to a centaur, so homes are built with roofs finished first, then exterior walls.  Centaurs can own land off the village, and this can be worked for private profit.

Centaurs follow the dodecatic faith, embracing the twelve gods, though centauric versions rather than human.  The Lord and Lady are treated as primary gods of leadership and home care, with the others given shrines and less common veneration.  The Lovers are invoked for marriage ceremonies and baptisms, while the primal religions are less widely respected.  The Beast is generally invoked only during revelry.  Fathoma is revered as the 'Riverkeeper', as the centaurs lack naval traditions.  The other gods are usually kept as personal shrines, venerated by trades people.

Centaur politics are council based.  Wealthy, elderly, or 'wise' individuals are invited on to a council to decide local matters.  Youthful firebrands are usually encouraged to go run out their passion and leave state matters to calmer heads.  A council always comprises a spokesperson, a stallion leader, a mare leader, a religious leader, a defense leader, and a judge.  Laws are passed by dictate, but unpopular laws are frequently altered before too much animosity is raised.  Centaur criminals are usually banished and may be branded or tattooed.  Capital punishment is usually enslavement, being sold to Ossians, and reserved for the most serious infractions.

Warfare between villages is rare.  Resource scarcity is usually addressed through sharing or one village absorbing another.  However, centaurs have long endured slave raids by Ossians seeking centaurs as laborers or exotics.  Their territory has also been subject to Arani and Florian attempts at colonization.  Centaurs are terrifying opponents, employing hit and run attacks, harrying supply lines, and employing withering ranged attacks.  Villages fortify behind ditches and spiked barricades, employing long lances to keep the enemy at bay.  When enough steel is available for heavy armor, centaurs are all but unstoppable.  Their powerful upper bodies can use two handed swords up to seven feet long to decimate pikemen's weapons, leaving them open to lighter armored attackers.

Centaurs eat five to seven times a day, usually a larger meal in the morning and then snacking through out.  Wheat and barley are preferred, and fruit and vegetables are a must.  The last meal of the day is protein, usually in meat pies or dumplings.  A centaur can eat grass, but it's difficult as their smaller mouths tend to have difficulty masticating and swallowing enough volume.  Eating grass is generally seen as a state of destitution, though can also suffice as a 'snack'.  Centaurs drink clean water filtered through charcoal and sand.  Tea and alcohol are enjoyed in the evenings, with beverages ranging from beer to wine, depending on climate.  Because of their mass, intoxication is rare, but frequently used to excuse bad behavior.

Humans have always had a complicated relationship with centaurs.  Foreign powers paint them as savages, but local powers recognize their civility.  As a result, a centaur can usually tell a human is decent or not by if they refer to them as a horse, or horse-folk.  If a human calls a centaur a centaur, they're generally  regarded well.  Centaur have no problem giving humans a ride, and most centaurs find humans to be enjoyable companions.  Romance is rare, but not unheard of, though no offspring can result from it.  The Olderunian tradition of cementing alliances with marriage has lead to some truly awkward noble houses having 'taurine branches', and in one curious case, created house Centos, a centaur dominated noble family that is regarded legally as 'human' by the crown.

While Centaurs are the most well known, the Cervitaurs are taurines living in the forests of Cervis, near the broken lands.  These thick woods have lead to smaller and more mobile taurines who more resemble deer and elk than horses.  Males grow horns that become more impressive with each generation, falling off in autumn.  Females grow smaller horns when they have young, shedding them when young are weened.  Cervitaurs tend to be more evasive, focusing on herbalism, exotic lumber, and eschew mining entirely.  The Pashtas of Ossia regard cervitaurs as prime subjects for their harems and menageries, and slave raids are frequent.  Cervitaur archers lack the arm length and strength of centaurs, and thus prefer flight to combat.  Cervitaur villages tend towards tents that can be moved and set up where conditions are beneficial.  Their religion tends towards the shamanistic roots of 'twelve sacred spirits' loosely aligned with more formal faiths.

Unitaurs are the result of elven abduction and experimentation of centaurs in the past.  While centaur in shape, they possess long, bare tails ending in tuffs, albinism, and have a small horn protruding from their brows.  Unitaurs that escaped their bondage inhabit a village known as Unios.  While most possess innate magical abilities, they also suffer from other maladies such as melancholy, migraines, anxiety, and outbursts of magic.  These are the product of inbreeding used by the elves to produce the offshoot, and, due to limited genetics, persist.  Centaurs and unitaur unions are infertile, and thus it remains to be seen if unitaurs will be able to persist down the generations. Unitaurs are pitied and feared by most centaurs, who either protect them or relocate them back to Unios.  Some still remain in Argentium, where they are kept as mind controlled and drugged pets and curiosities.

Baritaurs are the northernmost taurine people, living along the Bar, a series of ridges and hills at the base of the great northern icecap.  Baritaurs are regarded as centaur youths that never grew up, fighting and competing well into adulthood.  Their bodies are covered with thick hair and shaggy fur to combat the cold, and males and females both possess large horns they smash with great enthusiasm.  Baritaurs are barely civilized, with families breaking apart and forming constantly.  Baritaurs live in the moment, not giving two craps about past regrets or future conflicts.  Clothes are whatever fabrics they can get a hold of, and nudity is common.  Unlike other taurs, Baritaurs have little difficulty mining, and trade ores for alcohol and food.  Bauritaurs are renowned to eat almost anything even remotely digestible, and some things that aren't.  Castrated and nursing bauritaurs are the only members of the tribe tolerated outside their own territories.  The latter milk themselves daily to maintain their civility, and the cheese is something of an exotic luxury to Arani nobles.

Zebrataurs are the descendants of centaurs stolen by Ossian raiders who escaped or were released from slavery and moved to the Zebros river valley, a wide and semi arid region.  Unlike centaurs, zebrataurs have dark skin on their humanoid torsos streaked with broad white stripes, and white equine bodies striped black.  Their hair tends to be grown long and shaved into mohawks, with bare tails ending in a tuft.  Zebrataurs are noted for their energy and activity, but rarely posses the incivility of baritaurs.  Zebrataurs tend to be more gregarious, living in tight villages and gathering and farming the land around them.  They value music and dancing more then centaurs, and centaurs are often shocked by their vigor and grace.  Zebrataurs are also fierce ambushers, attacking invaders with javelins before fleeing back into the grassland.  While romance between zebrataurs and centaurs has occurred, it rarely leads to offspring.  Zebrataur are vigorously antagonistic against slavers, and have raided Ossian cities to liberate captive taurines.

Vultaurs and leotaurs exist, but both are the product of modern mortal magic and not of Ith descent.  As a result, both are considered 'beastfolk' in spite of their taurine body shape.  The dynian mage Biosan meddled with foxfolk and catfolk to create taurine versions of both.  Both possess fully furred torsos and animalistic heads, and were designed to be hermaphroditic.  The species bred true, and when Biosan died participating in one of his own experiments, his creations escaped.  The centaur Abrosa took pity on them and arranged to have them moved to Lithica before they were destroyed by unsympathetic humans.  Biosan made several others, including lupitaurs, sauritaurs, and lapitaurs, but none had number to sustain genetic diversity past two generations.

Both vultaurs and leotaurs tend to follow centaur customs and social norms.  One difference is both are gender fluid, changing as hormones shift from masculine to feminine and back.  Most use 'they' and 'them' pronouns.  Both also need a much, much higher porportion of protein to remain healthy.  Being only five generations old, it remains to be seen what place they will have in the world.