[DF] Stating up Centaurs

[chandley]

Originally Posted by ErhnamDJ

No, what would worry me is trying to figure out what they eat. Not only do they need an enormous amount of calories, but the easiest ways to get all those calories, and the ways that most suits their human bodies, are somewhat opposed to their horse bodies. They can hunt and eat animals. They can farm and grow grain. But their internal workings will have to be radically different from either a human's or a horse's to make this workable. If they eat grass, the human part of their digestive system gets messed up. If they don't eat grass, the horse part of their digestive system gets messed up. Their mouths are human. I would assume they eat a human diet. I can't imagine them eating grass. So... maybe they live in some place with an abundance of wild oats and fruits, which they supplement with meat from hunting. Even then, they'll have to consume a huge amount of food each day unless you give them access to lots of honey.

In this construction, I went with them being omnivores with largely human diets. They either follow or herd animals for meat, or ranch with some farming (or gathering) on the side. Horses are one stomach animals, so I figure the magic of the chimera has squared things up, going from herbivore to omnivore.

I do follow the Biotech suggestion of them eating 2 meals that are 3.4x as big (thats the "needs 2x the rations of a human" bit, with rounding). Ive been mulling something like Slow Eater (Lose 1.5 hours -70%) [3] as well.

For other thoughts up thread, I should put in some verbiage in their descriptions I suppose, about what they can do. Ive seen enough horses crawl (under fences, trees, trailers...) that I think thats going to be fine, and I was going to mention that Centaur can kick sideways (like donkeys). Climbing is an issue. Horses dont really do it, though goats and donkeys can. Incompetence (Climbing) might not be out of the question, but is a horrible thing to saddle a DF character with. Will have to ponder. Open to suggestions on modeling it being harder to climb without making it impossible.