Races like elves and orcs are easy to make human like, but I feel that centaurs would do things very differently than we are used to. Typically I see centaurs as being background characters because of this, but I’d like mine to have a major role. Any suggestions?
Posted May 26, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC
I feel like the inability to wipe your own ass would forever separate human and centaurkind. Hard to be best friends with someone like that.
The OP should include a Japanese style bidet seat with hot water spray and make the centaurs as overlords who look down upon humans who touch their asses in the first place.
This made me laugh out loud.
Lol, I'm imagining a human with the job of "horse-ass-wiper," being talked down to by the centaur who he is employed by.
Centaur: "Yes, human slave, the master demands you to wipe his ass."
Human: "Do it for your kids, do it for your kids."
Centaur: "What is that I hear you mutter, human slave?"
Don't forget the soothing bird noises. Humans are one thing but a centaur... The horror.
In the manga A Centaur's Life, centaurs have to be very mindful of their weight so they can continue to reach around and clean themselves.
How do their toddlers work. Horse babies are born able to walk. Human babies flop. Which do you have?
The horse part walks but the baby part just hangs from the top.
That's a terrifying image
Styles of comfort. For example, a bed for a centaur would be massive compared to a bed for a human. Or maybe a completely different type of toilet. Things would need to be made specifically for centaurs in accepting cultures
how would a centaur lie down to sleep?
fold the legs under it, the just have the human part hang backwards? lie down on its side? (but how does it then get back up?)
Read from another book that addressed that that the lead centaur would prefer to sleep lying down when available, but could easily do it standing up. The only real downside was an uncomfortable kink in their neck from no support
Distance would be a relative nonfactor for centaurs. They could quickly and easily gallop to town. They'd also probably be able to wipe the floor with a human in a fight. They'd have a strong rivalry with mounted knights.
Something I don't see here is what a centaur's dwelling would look like. All the counters would be at least waist-height for the centaur, around shoulder-height for a human. It would be absolutely massive, and there would be no sharp corners. They can't make sharp turns like that. The hallways would have curves instead of corners.
Well, my advice would be to have the centaurs be treated like disabled people are treated in our world.
Can't climb stairs? Why not have them use ramps and elevators like we don't with wheelchair-bound people in our world, for instance.
Yes, it would limit what your centaur could do, but that could be a huge plus for your story. Certain obstacles that another character could easily overcome would become a struggle for the centaur, and your reader will root for your character to overcome those obstacles.
Just my thoughts. I'm a bit tired and my mind isn't functioning at 100% right now.
Basically just a guy in a wheelchair in terms of adaptation of traversal. But exceptions being made for things like seating which would likely just ignore chairs entirely and bedding which would probably have an absence in the lower portion of the bed to securely hold the lower body and avoid awkwardly rolling over.
Stairs are difficult for horses to traverse. In a centaur-friendly society expect to see more ramps and fewer steps (basically, they have similar accessibility needs as a wheelchair). Ceilings would be higher since a centaur's height is effectively horse+rider. Hallways, aisles, and other movement areas would be wider since even if a centaur turns in place, they still need way more clearance to turn around.
Chairs are a bit of a quandary; horses in real life can stand for very long hours with little fatigue (they just shift which legs they're putting the most weight on), so I'd expect those super squishy impact mats to be way more common.
Also, unless you are planning on rendering your centaurs wildly different from the norm, I'd expect they have few hangups about nudity below the belt-line (human or centaur). Why? If the horse part isn't clothed, they're running around with their genitals showing at all time.
If you have them operate more like horses they'd also be very matriarchal in structure. They will also be way more jumpy than a human, prone to bolt around sudden noises or movement (that reaction can be trained out of horses, but they are naturally flighty animals).
I didn’t even think about stairs. I have a room in the castle where a character uses the stairs to get to, I’ll have to plan that out better.
My centaurs would be more like people than horses. Thanks for all the tips!
Steps can work, they just need to be deeper. Our steps are like half a foot deep, ones designed for a centaur would be two or three feet deep. Also each step can be taller because a horses legs are much longer than a humans.
I think a ramp, unless it was absurdly shallow and long, would be too slippery for metal horseshoes. Especially stone ramps in winter.