Minotaurs

A minotaur is a bull/human hybrid which roamed the dungeons of archaic Sosaria.

Description
While stories of the minotaur exists on multiple worlds, the Sosarian beast bearing this name had its nativity in grotesque experiments at the hands of the wizard Mondain. The wicked mage encouraged perverse trysts between his followers and Baratarian fighting bulls, resulting in these abominable half-man/half-auroch offspring. These minotaurs, similar to their counterpart in Earth's Athenian myth, came to dwell in the labyrinthine depths of many of the realm's dungeons, where they could be found lying in wait for unwary adventurers.



After the death of Mondain, these bestial hybrids eventually vanished from the lands which would become Britannia, and have not been seen since.

Trivia

 * The minotaur (literally "The Bull of Minos") has its origins in Athenian mythology, where it was born to Pasiphaë, wife of King Minos of Crete, as punishment for the ruler's failure to sacrifice a sacred bull to Poseidon. The minotaur was later imprisoned by Minos within a labyrinth devised by the genius Daedalus, and was fed with groups of Athenian youths demanded by Minos as tribute until it was slain by the hero Theseus.
 * In Ultima I, "Minotaur" is misspelled as "Minatour" in the game, despite being spelled correctly within the manual.
 * In Martian Dreams a minotaur appears in the dreamscape of Louis Comfort Tiffany, playing the role of the proverbial "bull in a china shop" as it manifests Tiffany's anxieties about his work being destroyed.
 * Minotaurs were to be included in the canceled Ultima X. See Planned Monsters for Ultima X for further details.