Manotaur

Think of a minotaur turned around: where a minotaur is a man with a bull's head, a manotaur has a bull's body and the powerful upper body of a man, like a centaur. Its head bears horns it keeps whetted for battle, and a thick mane spills down its neck over its shoulders. Most are brown, gray or black, 7 to 8 feet tall and 10 to 12 feet long. Strictly carnivorous, it has a wide mouth of sharp teeth and short fangs. It speaks its own tongue plus minotaur, ogre and hill giant.

Thanks to keen smell and hearing, a 1 in 10 is the only roll that surprises it, and since it gallops in perfect silence through its woods, opponents suffer -3 on their surprise rolls. When it gains surprise, it usually charges.

Normally it strikes with two front hooves and its horns. Whenever it has a straight 20-foot run, it can charge, attacking only with the horns but for triple damage (3d8). The impact flings a man-sized or smaller target ten feet back and may knock it flat.

Cunning as well as strong, it overpowers small foes but outwits well-armed ones. Its favorite trick is to hit from surprise with one charge, vanish into the trees, and repeat until the enemy is worn down enough to finish.

Manotaurs are evil and hate everything good. They lair in overgrown, desolate forests, pounding a tangle of twisting, crossing paths with their hooves that only the resident knows. Anyone following them is 75% likely to get lost, and without magic a lost traveler finds the way out on just a 10% chance each day. Here and there a path runs straight for up to 30 feet, and there the manotaur waits to charge just as a victim comes around the bend.

Some guard their woods jealously and kill every intruder. Others stock them with giant spiders, orcs or an ogre or two to spread terror and to spy on the outside world.

Newborn colts have 2 Hit Dice. The father keeps a colt until it grows to 5 Hit Dice, then drives it out, and kills it on sight if it ever comes back.

Manotaurs hunt brownies, sprites, elves and other sylvan folk. They loathe unicorns and can sense one anywhere in their forest; hunting one down is the sole cause that will make two manotaurs work together.

Coins scattered along the paths, a gold piece here, a silver there, lure creatures into the maze. Careful mappers might pocket a few, but even a short trip inside can end badly. The main hoard lies near the forest's heart, tucked in a hollow tree or beneath a large boulder. No one knows where the first manotaur came from, possibly from a minotaur and a human woman. They live 300 years or more.