#askcentaur

How do centaurs treat broken bones and other leg injuries both mundane and magical?

Yes, in fact this was briefly mentioned in the story "Love Poison" and I think in a couple other stories too. Breaking a leg is a serious issue for centaurs, often considered a death sentence. They almost always need magic to fix it, and it takes a very skilled curative mage to do so properly. Otherwise they may walk with a limp forever and lose the ability to run. It's important for centaurs to run regularly to help them digest things. If they stop moving enough, their health suffers badly. A centaur with just one crippled leg has a greatly reduced lifespan.

Centaur cultures tend to be pretty conservative about using magic. They recognize its great power, but believe that this power should only be wielded by the most responsible among them. So in many centaur societies, you will find that most citizens don't know much--if any--magic, but there are a small handful of shamans/elders who practice magic religiously and build their whole lives around it.

These individuals are responsible for healing broken legs in centaur societies. In more mixed or developed environments, I think centaurs just go to the local hospital and pray there is someone on staff competent enough to deal with them.

Centaur legs can also be healed without magic, but the chance of success is much smaller.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

( basically the weird, squishy tentacle things on newborn foals hooves that keep them from harming the mom durning pregnancy & birth)

I don't see why not! The baby centaur's parents remove them shortly after birth though, and if they are not removed they will just fall off on their own after a while.

Other peoples are usually creeped out by these weird fleshy hooves, but centaurs find it totally adorable!

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

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I see! I think it depends heavily on the individual person and the area they're rampaging in.

A raging adult centaur in a small cafe? The whole interior is getting wrecked. Furniture smashed, windows and doors broken, people thrown, the works.

In the middle of a wide open street with no vehicles around? Some windows might get smashed, maybe a stop sign bent, but overall the infrastructure is going to be too tough for them to damage much. An ogre or minotaur might be able to head-bash some cracks in a cement wall.

Overall I'd say "Imagine a horse, bull, or silverback gorilla going nuts" and that's about the level of damage we're talking about.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

She likes to pretend she's a goody two-shoes, but Blomi is secretly a menace lol. Crossing her is a big mistake. She retaliates against her enemies in the most underhanded ways, and it's so sneaky that most of the time they don't even realize she's the one messing with them. This behavior is uncharacteristic of centaurs, so she's kind of unusual in that way. Hestal doesn't know he was poisoned by his sister...he just thinks he ate some bad meat or something.

A lot of public toilets on Looming Gaia have regular toilets and urinals (if plumbing is available) or just latrines (if no plumbing), but for centaurs and other heavyweight species, long trough-like toilets are installed as well. I imagine a centaur would have to kind of straddle it and squat to use it properly. This is also a solution for ogres, because I think their big tails would get in the way trying to use a regular style toilet that sits against a wall.

These toilet-troughs might empty into a latrine pit. Or they may have to be shoveled out periodically, medieval-style. If the bathroom has plumbing, then they probably just flush like a normal toilet.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

In particular how do they breathe effectively and maintain balance? Having small human nostrils and mouth and huge horse body. Not to mention a front heavy build with a human torso grafted onto a horse body.

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly...and according to all known laws of biology, there is no way a centaur should be able to live. And yet, they do! It is one of the great mysteries of Gaia.

Centaur anatomy is indeed very complex. Most general physicians aren't qualified to treat them for this reason, so centaurs must seek specialized medical care for their kind.

Because of their convoluted anatomy, they are susceptible to a lot of convoluted health problems. Centaurs have short lifespans compared to other species, most of them succumbing to some kind of health issue in their 50s or 60s. Sometimes they can mitigate these problems with magic and live a longer life. But in general, centaurs start fighting an uphill battle against their own anatomy after age 30. There are just so many things that can go wrong with their many parts.

As far as breathing goes, centaurs have two sets of lungs. They pant through their noses and mouths, but in addition, they also "breathe" through their skin by sweating. Centaur facial features are not the same as human features; they are described as "harsher", kind of like the faces of neanderthals.

Their mouths, nostrils, and airways are quite a bit larger than humans', which allows them to pass more air through at once. If you're up close and personal with a centaur, you will notice they actually breathe quite loudly, much like horses do. Both sets of lungs are very strong, and you can hear this power in each breath.

A centaur's humanoid half is connected to their equine half with one long spine, plus a complex system of muscles. This attachment is not as delicate as it looks; these halves are really secure and it takes immense force to separate them.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Do Male Centaurs have penetrative sex with other species? And vice versa for Female Centaurs?

Don't worry, this actually isn't the first time I've gotten this question!

The short answer is: it depends on the people involved. The following text may be NSFW, so I'm placing it below a cut...

Good question! Centaurs gestate young in the equine half of their bodies, so only the horse-belly gets bigger.

However, like with all species, I imagine pregnancy can cause them to gain some weight overall.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

That's a very good question, but the answer may disappoint you...centaurs actually don't use furniture! Well, they do, but not in the way that most other peoples do.

Chairs are not really a "thing" in centaur households. Some may own a few chairs or even a couch for their non-centaur guests, but the centaurs themselves just sit on the floor. When they go to restaurants, centaurs move the chairs aside to sit or lay down in front of the table.

The average centaur's couch is called a "sitting area", and it usually consists of pelts, rugs, and pillows arranged into a nest on the floor. Wealthier centaurs might have a large mattress to lounge on, while poor centaurs just use a pile of hay. The same principle applies to their beds.

I imagine the Folkvaran royal family sleeps on nothing less than the finest fur pelts and Morite silks. Due to this species' weight, bedframes are not very practical so they're rarely used. Instead, mattresses may be stacked on top of eachother for extra height.

A centaur's weight also means they can't just get any random mattress. They need one made specifically for heavyweight species, so it won't sag and go flat after a week. These are made out of tougher materials and are a lot more expensive. They also buy special tables that can withstand their weight when they lean on them, and that may be a taller height than standard tables.

Centaur dwellings in general have taller furnishings like cabinets and door handles. Doorways are taller, and so are the ceilings. Rooms tend to be spacious and open without much furniture, so they're not constantly bumping their big horse-asses into things. A standard human house would feel claustrophobic to a centaur.

As for Sygbarne...yeah, I can imagine her family strapping her down "for her own safety" (in reality, for their own convenience...). But since she would not have a bed frame, I think she would be strapped to the floor instead. I think her room would be sparsely-furnished, even by centaur standards. Her family's logic being: the less things she has, the less things she can destroy. She probably has a mattress and some toys, and not much else. Her other possessions like clothing would be kept away from her until she needed them.

Sygbarne's room would be pretty abnormal, but the rest of her family would have exactly what you'd expect from rich centaurs.

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