Centaurs - inconvenient shape

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Human babies are so helpless because they're basically born 3 months premature so they can fit through a bipedal hominid's hips. Bipeds need narrow narrow hips to walk and run efficiently, which is basically opposite what you want for shoving a better developed baby through. So human babies prioritize development of lungs, digestive tract and other organs to survive off the placenta, and enough of a brain and limbs to signal parents into caring for it for that 9 month deadline. Everything else is sort of shelved if it doesn't contribute to the goal, leading to feeble, un-co-ordinated humans that may have their eyes open but can't actually see and can't even crawl for 7+ months.

Well, stick a pouch on and call us marsupial.

[Figleaf23]

Centaur Alternate Conception

Centaurs gestate with their HA curled forward under the EP and are born head first, uncoiling to turn the EA a full 180 around. Young are born much smaller than horses, relatively speaking. Connective tissue is overly supple and strenthens post natally. Legs start shortish, hooves grow and harden post-natally. Arms are comparatively well developed and in fact are strong enough to protect the newborn as it drops to the ground from the mother, who gives birth standing with legs spread.

Newborns struggle their feet within 24 hours after birth, usually pulling themselves up on a parent by their arms. They are not truly ambulatory for about a month. Parents can also lift to nurse (mammaries are located on the HA) or carry, with both sets of the child's EP limbs sort of bestriding the adult's HA hips/EP shoulders.


Relative taxonomy


HA is really just a neck with shoulders/arms added and a head on top, most organ systems are housed in the EP. This leaves more room for muscle and airways. The bone structure that gives the appearance of a rib cage is different, smaller, more flexible, and more specialized for carrying muscle rather than protecting internals.

EP is smaller than a typical modern riding horse and legs are short relative to the shape of a typical horse. But, even a smaller-than-horse EP is a large structure compared to a human body, and so the centaur's HA can be somewhat bulkier than a human and still appear proportioned, as well as the shoulders and neck being wider and arms being longer and strongly muscled.
The result is that centaur HA portions are the same ST of the overall body. All centaurs look like body builders.

The EP is a much more normal body (but a bit less long relative to a horse's shape) containing an omnivorous digestive system, equine-like genitalia (one set, appropriate to gender*), and a normal panoply of generally equine-arranged, omnivore-appropriate other organs. However, there is also a nerve-centre at the bottom of the HA spinal column, and the thyroid, epiglotal system, and a quasi-heart, are housed in the lower portion of the HA.


Range of Motion

Standing, the HA is in an upright position supported on the EP shoulders. It can bend forward so the head goes more that 180 degrees, and hands can reach the abdomen. It can bend and twist backward or sideways such that the hands can reach the base of its tail -- a healthy centaur should be able to touch any spot on its body with one hand or another.

Turning head and shoulders of the upper body, it can twist around slightly further than a human could, which is advantageous for archery on the move.

The EP is a bit more supple than typical for equines, though not up to feline standards. While this makes centaurs generally more dextrous than a normal equine, it means it is not capable of sustaining a rider or load for lengthy periods like a horse can. (Centaurs carry their own loads on belts/balanced bags that hang around the HA 'waist' over the EP shoulders).

[tantric]

Realistically, to the extent that realism is appropriate, the HA might have lungs and a secondary heart. Lungs because a trachea that long would be weird, though giraffes manage it, and a heart to supply the brain.

From this thread I went on to develop a culture for my centaurs, which is too world specific to be generally useful, but I'll summarize. They use real world Lakota for a language (there's a great dictionary page), pull carts, live symbiotically with several tribes of halflings and ravens and herd dinosaurs. They have factual, demonstrable reincarnation, so they have a version of ancestor veneration. They are not natural beings - they are descended from the third part of the pegasus/unicorn triad, which was evil (more or less). They built cities and fought each other until they couldn't breed then united their souls with their slave races and dismantled their cities, so lots of ruins. I used the real world Great Plains for the geography and flora.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

Well, stick a pouch on and call us marsupial.

Human bipeds have a knock kneed position because of our hip articulation.
The extinct branch of tetrapods Rauisuchia had an "upright pillar" hip articulation allowing for the possibility of wide set hips but efficient bipedalism.
They wouldn't be able to do the splits without snapping bones, but you can't have everything.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Danukian

While I don't think Centaurs should be herbivores - they could be grass eaters if you wanted to tack on Slow Eater, it works with moths like a sloth or koala, though it would take all day filling a pony-sized belly. I don't see centaurs free-grazing, though - I imagine it would be a terrible strain on the spine!

But basically, I am of the opinion that you shouldn't over-think fantasy races, or your giant spiders won't be able to climb up walls if they even survive being crushed under their own weight...

I'd imagine them as pastoralists, like Tartars or Cossacks. Their diet would be overwhelmingly meat except for wine or other drinks.

They are a convenient shape for herding or hunting large hoofed animals.

[Flyndaran]

Mythological centaurs tend to be rather heavy meat eating barbarians. How a top heavy equine would realistically live seems an odd argument.

Horses take a long time to eat, because their systems are very poor at digesting grass especially compared to ruminants and other cellulose digesting animals.

Why not just crank that up with "advanced" symbiotes that crack it faster? That seems just as realistic as anything else, I'd think.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Bruno

Taking a step further back from the problem - we have a hexapod with what appears to be two body segments and a head, and the segments are pretty distinct for a vertebrate (the head moreso than the ... abdomen and thorax? to borrow from the other group of three-segmented hexapods)

The "abdomen" segment is large and has four straight, long limbs (two at the front end of the segment, two at the back), legs specialized for walking/running in a plains environment. The "thorax" segment has one set of manipulating limbs at the very front end, and the separate head segment is a pretty mobile attachment at the front of the abdomen, situated very close to the manipulating limbs. The "thorax" segment is typically held at right angles to the "abdomen" but seems mobile.

So what kind of problem is this layout trying to solve?

If you want the 'classic' centaur, which looks fully human from the 'waist' up and equine from the 'waist' back, the simplest solution is that it's an artificial construct (as a race), whether of a wizard, a god, or whatever.

That's not handwaving, necessarily. You can still assume that whatever entit(ies) did it had to work within whatever rules govern that universe, still look at how the skeleton and musculature and digestion and reproduction work. But the classic centaur, to me, looks like it almost has to be the product of intent.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Mythological centaurs tend to be rather heavy meat eating barbarians. How a top heavy equine would realistically live seems an odd argument.

Horses take a long time to eat, because their systems are very poor at digesting grass especially compared to ruminants and other cellulose digesting animals.

Why not just crank that up with "advanced" symbiotes that crack it faster? That seems just as realistic as anything else, I'd think.

We don't have to have digestive organs suited for an equine. Just a bone and muscle structure.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

We don't have to have digestive organs suited for an equine. Just a bone and muscle structure.

Sure, but I was trying to think of ways to keep the centaur more than just a thin veneer of man-horse nature.

As magical beasts, they could be filled with chocolate pudding and still look like classic centaurs. But "a wizard did it" with little internal logic is rarely fulfilling to most gamers.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

I'd imagine them as pastoralists, like Tartars or Cossacks. Their diet would be overwhelmingly meat except for wine or other drinks.

They are a convenient shape for herding or hunting large hoofed animals.

I've gone for bantu-based centaurs in the past - mostly carnivorous cattle herders, clashing with plains-Indian themed orcs and pseudo-Roman humans.