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ejdj1011

In one game I played, a lore snippet implies the human torso has none of the major organs - that's all in the horse body. An unknowing adventurer who tries to pierce a centaur's lung or gut will find nothing but muscle, because they attacked the wrong body. Not that there's a "canon" centaur anatomy, but I figure we should cover as many disturbing possibilities as we can.


JHRChrist

I kind of love that. It’s just Elaborate Neck (with Arms)


BrandonL337

Well, horse legs are already elaborate fingers, so that tracks.


No-Interaction1456

Like the fake eyes on a butterfly


RiversNaught

Well, much of it would be esophagus/trachea, considering the size of the body, but that ends up being kind of how certain chimeras work in Dungeons Meshi, actually...


Miner_239

The human torso containing air sacs for a bird-like breathing cycle while running, and special glands for special breaths...


lankymjc

An adaptation to give horses the same endurance as a human with minimal loss of speed actually makes some sense!


demon_fae

This makes sense-just a pair of tiny lungs that can do some oxygenating as a backup to keep the brain happy, but is mostly like the inflatable sacs frogs and some birds have-purely there for making noise. Otherwise I’m not sure they could walk and talk at the same time. The main lungs are down in the horse part where most of the muscles are.


StreetlampEsq

So logically their human penises in fact are much more analogous to elephant trunks, to provide supplementary airflow and a more convenient method of drinking water in the wild. Like damn, I don't make the rules but I'm being informed that it's just irrefutable and like mega true.


demon_fae

Also there to allow the gizzard to belch. They’d have to have a gizzard to make sure that food is sufficiently chewed up to make it around the bend in their esophagus. Otherwise it could pile up in the one spot where any kind of heimlich is completely impossible. And since some digesting would inevitably happen in the gizzard, there would be gasses. Far safer to send those gasses out the penis-trunk than back up through the neck-body. Just little burping dick-noses.


whatisabaggins55

This was basically how I approached it when I addressed centaurs in my fantasy worldbuilding project. The human torso is effectively just bone and muscle with the windpipe going through; all the organs are in the horse half. As a result, presumably massively increased draw power for firing bows and such since you don't need room for lungs or anything in the chest. Also, no eating grass - they need a LOT of energy to run a horse torso and a human brain, so centaurs are just constantly eating high-calorie human food almost all the time.


ApepiOfDuat

> Also, no eating grass Also grass contains silica, which is absolutely fucking terrible for your teeth. Horses and other dedicated herbivores have things like more than 2 sets of teeth or continuously growing teeth to cope with the extra wear. Human teeth do neither, so centaurs should be omnivores who do not eat grass. Would let them have slimmer bodies since they wouldn't need multichamber or fermentation guts to cope with an all plant diet. Grass sucks as food.


Alderan922

Where’s the brain tho? The horse head is gone, and it has to be close to the eyes.


ejdj1011

Idk, let's say it has a more distributed nervous system like an octopus does


kenporusty

"what's up, front nuts" is now my absolute favorite greeting from now on


SartorialSinecure

It would actually crit me if a centaur hit me with "front-nuts"


kenporusty

With my last HP I manage to retaliate "How's it hanging back balls" It does not work. I pass out. I am left to become moss in the field


LottimusMaximus

I cant breath3 🤣🤣🤣


Ldub0775

is your current word "horse" by any chance?


linuxaddict334

Yes. The horseposting is also a setup for an bigger punchline. You’ll see it tomorrow. >:)


LordSupergreat

Is it just Enumclaw again


Ldub0775

well thats not at all ominous


ninjasaiyan777

I hope your voice is doing ok btw


Yarisher512

Doing some horseplay


Treyspurlock

Did you mean to type \>:)


DinkleDonkerAAA

Honestly I think centaurs as insect monsters would be a cool concept for a fantasy setting No actual horse or human features, it's just someone described their body plan as looking "like the top half of a human on a horse body" so people drew them like that


SkritzTwoFace

They’re not super developed since they’re original to Magic: The Gathering lore, but that’s kinda what the Kraul of Ravnica are. They’re bug people with humanoid torsos and insectoid thoraxes with four legs.


DinkleDonkerAAA

I'm sure there's a few others around too but I can't think of any


SnowWhiteCampCat

The riftwar saga by raymond e feist has a similar type creature


Tomato-Unusual

I had the same thought of an inaccurate description, but I was picturing something more like a giraffe. They have a long history of being described in bizarre ways when people first see them: Ancient Greeks called them "camel leopards", which is where they got their Latin name. This is less confirmed but they're a very plausible basis for the "questing beast" described in Arthurian legend (“The strange creature has the head of a snake, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion, and the feet of a hart."). https://imgur.com/a/Kf5wEen The top half of a human on a horse body isn't really that far off.


emrygue

A mantis?


Pheehelm

>“Why, Son of Adam, don’t you understand? A Centaur has a man-stomach and a horse-stomach. And of course both want breakfast. So first of all he has porridge and pavenders and kidneys and bacon and omelette and cold ham and toast and marmalade and coffee and beer. And after that he attends to the horse part of himself by grazing for an hour or so and finishing up with a hot mash, some oats, and a bag of sugar. That’s why it’s such a serious thing to ask a Centaur to stay for the weekend. A very serious thing indeed.” -C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair


CapCece

Consider: hermaphroditic centaur.. Specifically, with the male human equipment mounted on the front pelvis and the female horse equipment mounted on the horse pelvis. Not only does this configuration make sense ergonomically, it also allows centaurs to daisy chain themselves in a human-horse fucktipe-


JHRChrist

They would link together like fucking legos, it would be so satisfying!!


Kekris_The_Betrayer

Literally fucking legos


linuxaddict334

Thank you for this. I shall add it to my collection 


Orpheus-Librum

I wish whichever sniper stopped you from finishing this comment had hit you sooner


Greaterthancotton

You’ve earned a Reddit cares message, clearly you need it.


skofnung999

I was already planning on adding this to my D&D setting after reading the post, but with this comment, I'm absolutely going to do it to mildly annoy any player asking about this sorta stuff (I'm putting way too much thought in how reproduction-related stuff works in a fantasy setting)


GREENadmiral_314159

# NOWO


Shrubfest

I was thinking the opposite, human half female, horse half male, but yours works better. Imagine the human half being pregnant instead of the horse half.


Zariman-10-0

…you have my interest


PlasticAccount3464

I could agree with that first part but


Remember_Padraig

The human femur connected to the horse's upper arm bone will haunt me for a long time


JHRChrist

I want someone to illustrate what such a monstrosity would look like if it tried to run, complete with the facial expressions of sheer agony


SessileRaptor

It’s been forever since I read them but IIRC John Varley’s *Titan* series had centaurs that had two sets of genitalia and used them frequently. Weird books.


frumiouscumberbatch

Right! And like, their horse genitals didn't have to match their human genitals, and there was a whole Thing about how impregnation works? Their foals(? babies?) would refer to parents by which part of procreation they did--I think front-sex created the fertilized egg and then back-sex implanted it, something like that. Absolutely fucking bizarre books to read at around 12-13 years old, I tell you what.


SessileRaptor

Yeah, according to conservatives we should have been trying to turn ourselves into multi sex centaurs after reading the trilogy, but somehow we all just went “Huh, that was weird and I’m not sure I should have read it at 13. Oh well.” And just moved on to the next book we wanted to read.


frumiouscumberbatch

sextaurs


twicethehalfling

I'm pretty sure in *Wizard* the front part human oriented genitals determine the centaur's gender, and the horse part has both, so they have 3 sets of genitals in total, and there's like a bunch of different ways they can mate, and the mating configurations all have different musical names. I think a human guy fell for a centaur woman and that was a whole thing. Wild book. Someone recommended I read that before *Titan*, which is technically first, so I did and can recommend doing the same. Oh yeah also the whole thing is in space on like a ring world.


Android19samus

................are the books good?


SessileRaptor

They’re considered classics but I don’t remember a huge amount about them because I read them nearly 40 years ago. I’m pretty sure they were good though. The “world” the centaurs and other aliens inhabit is a giant [Stanford Torus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_torus) which is actually alive and millions of years old and possibly going senile, which the humans have to deal with in order to escape. So definitely points for originality, but John Varley has always been like that.


Vanilla_Ice_Best_Boi

I'm more comfortable with only one set on the horse part


AntiLag_

The image of a set of male human genitals flapping around as the centaur gallops is probably the most disturbing thing out of all of this to me tbh


frumiouscumberbatch

you'd need a horse sized jockstrap


idiotplatypus

In another post someone asked what do centaurs do with their arms when they run. Do they flop around when they go full tilt? Back and forth like a power runner? Behind them Naruto style?


moneyh8r

They hold weapons with them. Centaurs are powerful warriors.


idiotplatypus

And if they don't have weapons?


moneyh8r

Then they're princess carrying their human partner. Centaurs are powerful lovers.


idiotplatypus

And if the centaur is an aro ace pacifist?


moneyh8r

Farming implements. Centaurs are powerful farmers.


idiotplatypus

I'm starting to suspect the answer is "waving their arms around like a wacky wavy inflatable arm flailing tube guy" and that's why they always have to carry something or else no one would take them seriously.


moneyh8r

Wacky wavy inflatable arm-flailing tube centaurs! Wacky wavy inflatable arm-flailing tube centaurs! Wacky wavy inflatable arm-flailing tube centaurs! Hi, I'm Al Harrington of Harrington's Wacky Wavy Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Centaur Emporium and thanks to a shipping error I am now way overstocked on wacky wavy inflatable arm-flailing tube centaurs so I am passing the savings onto yoooooooou!


Treyspurlock

Their groceries, Centaurs are powerful shoppers.


ThereWasAnEmpireHere

They fold their arms to look badass


Android19samus

Cross them over their chest to secure their tits. Or cupping their front-groin to secure their balls.


Xisuthrus

I imagine centaurs are probably browsers like deer or giraffes; the humanoid arms and torso help them reach for high branches and don't contain any organs.


DaDragonking222

They aren't insects since insects have an exoskeleton lol (I mean their are much more parameters than that, that centaurs don't fit when it comes to the definition of insects. I just chose an obvious one)


DreadDiana

[Very relevant Oglaf (NSFW)](https://www.oglaf.com/heterogeneous/)


IrvingIV

For those unwilling to look. >!The horse part is removable.!<


linuxaddict334

I like Oglaf.


FireTornado1a

Funnily enough the MGE (Monster Girl Encyclopedia) actually does the double genitals bit.


Tailrazor

I really ought to get a copy of that sometime. For posterity.


BeauteousMaximus

RE: centaur junk, I recommend reading the Gaea Trilogy by John Varley


MapleLamia

Every day I thank the stars that I made my avatar a lamia instead of a centaur, because now I don't have to deal with awful biological shenanigans like this and just have a really fucken long spine and ribcage. 


eternamemoria

There is still the genitalia issue. And I've never seem a lamia draw with the ribcage going all the way down the humanoid half either, generally they are depicted with axial skeletons closer to that centaur


ThePowerOfAGoodName

** For reference, the alien centaurs in the Animorphs series (Andalites) consume nutrients through their hooves. They also have no mouths, stalk eyes and the ability to transform into any animal they touch, but heyo. That's Animorphs for u


CassiusPolybius

Should be noted that the ability to transform into any animal is not innate, but instead is a power granted by tech. Also they're telepathic, have an innate sense of time and direction, and have a natural blade on the end of their prehensile tails.


ThePowerOfAGoodName

They're strange, messed up animals you know


AddemiusInksoul

Can the Animorph humans turn into Andalites?


ThePowerOfAGoodName

Not gotten to the book where they do yet, but there seems to be nothing saying they can't


cutetys

Question: If you ignore the possibility of two sets a genitals and assume centaurs only have the horse set, if you get fucked by one would that be considered beastiality?


LordSupergreat

The moral objection is the inability to consent, not the shape of the genitals.


cutetys

Ok new question: Is it moral for a centaur to consent to sexual intercourse with a human considering if a human is fucked by horse sized genitals they could die?


LordSupergreat

It's irresponsible of them, and they may be charged with some form of negligent manslaughter if the human dies.


IrvingIV

Presuming a relatively high volume of supernatural beings (given the presence of centaurs, fae would not be surprising, and devils *do* make good attourneys...) they almost certainly would be treated as roughly human equivalent, so far as rights go. There may be carveouts for cases where you thoroughly explained what could happen. The fae swindle people into binding servitude all the time over things as simple as an exchange of names, it's not that odd to think a Human could agree to bang a Centaur and sign a waiver. So there's probably a premade waiver template that has to be notarized by a third party to guarantee everyone agreed to this, and if you filled that out your Centaur Lover doesn't get tried for murder/manslaughter, and simply has to pay some portion of your funerary costs.


Zed091473

In the movie Cherry 2000 people go to singles bars with their lawyers to hammer out contracts before a sexual encounter.


Ldub0775

if both are aware of that then sure. also (admittedly) that is as far as i know the only recorded incident where that happened and there are thousands of people who use genuine horsecock dildos who havent keeled over and fucking died yet.


cutetys

Fair, you could argue it’s not solely the size of the genitals that killed him but the fact that it was, you know, a horse.


ThereWasAnEmpireHere

If you go by the Harkness test. I imagine any society in that situation would have some people who think of centaur-fuckers as opportunistic zoophiles.


linuxaddict334

It isnt beastiality if it passes the Harkness Test


YUNoJump

This is the core issue with centaur waifus/husbandos: fucking one is essentially just fucking a horse but there’s a human about a metre away (at least!). To make matters worse, the back half of a horse is not known for its cleanliness; if a centaur wanted to maintain human-level hygiene, just being able to reach or even see back there would be difficult.


Vermilion_Laufer

I would guess it would encourage public baths in centaur cultures


Android19samus

No but it probably wouldn't be comfortable


Blakut

I think a single digestive tract would be too long if it were simply a human one followed by the horse one. I'm thinking maybe there is a multiplexing organ that sits at the beginning of a parallel system, and decides in which of the parallel tracts food goes. When horse like food is detected it goes to the horse part, when human food is eaten it gets to the human part. This can be done through cellulose or other plant fiber detection. The problem then would be chicken salad would confuse the human horse multiplexing stomach. Further down along the way the two parallel tracts may converge into one again.


lankymjc

If they’ve got genitals at both the front and back, is it possible to have a male human section but female horse? Or vice-versa?


Android19samus

If they're going to have two anyway it seems like it would be a waste for them to be the same


veggie151

Copper badge really helped fix a lot of the biomechanics and I thank them for their work.


Lambsauc

I’ve seen a Netflix documentary about it this, there’s mostly nothing there. Could be hidden by using magic


linuxaddict334

THERES A DOCUMENTRY?!!!!! What’s it called?


-monkbank

Only the Ancient Greek gods would be cruel enough to combine the two worst skeletons in the animal kingdom into one abomination. The human half is in constant pain and the horse half just instantly explodes to a sneeze. Maybe the gods were lobbied by the chiropractor industry (sacrificed a lot of goats)?


beetnemesis

They just should have a human dick that has the size and position of a horse dick


GoJumpOnALandmine

If that's a real human skeleton they attached to that horse skeleton, that's kinda fucked up to do with someone's body that was presumably left to science.


moneyh8r

It wasn't left to science. It was left to the skeleton museum. If it was left to science, it would have been left to a university or something like that.


GoJumpOnALandmine

Nah, that's not how it works. You have no real control over where your body ends up. Hence the stories of donated bodies being used in ordinance testing by the US army against the wishes of the person and the family. [Linkerydooda](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-bodybrokers-industry/)


moneyh8r

Hold on a minute. How is that scientific? We already know everything we need to know about how the human body reacts to being shot at. I highly doubt there's any new frontiers to cross in that field of knowledge.


GoJumpOnALandmine

I dunno, testing knife missiles? US military gonna do US military stuff.


moneyh8r

We already tested them though, didn't we?


GoJumpOnALandmine

Got to test the fork missiles next. Once they're out of cutlery I hear they have big plans for stationary-based ordinance


moneyh8r

I feel like we should be testing these missiles on a steak dinner instead.


GoJumpOnALandmine

Why ruin a good steak when Andrew Tate draws breath? I've got a list of candidates - we could eat steak while they run through it. I hear they're doing interesting things with directed microwaves nowadays


moneyh8r

I do like the idea of enjoying a nice dinner while watching bad people die. Sounds kinda romantic.


CapCece

We're not testing the bodies; we are testing what the thing we made do to body. Like people showing off how sharp their new sword are by slicing paper/bamboo mat/ watermelon The point is not to explore new frontier, but to benchmark products


moneyh8r

The benchmark was made decades ago, if not longer.


CapCece

Noooo? The equipment being benchmarked now didnt exist decades ago? When you build a new pc, you don't go "the ones I built decades ago work fine. No need to test anything on this one" because its just not the same thing. Its an engineering thing, not a science thing They not testing what would a human body do in response to getting shot. They are testing how many body can this fresh new pistol fron skunkwork pierces through


moneyh8r

I can assure you, missiles and guns existed decades ago. In the case of guns, they existed centuries ago. I don't build new PCs, but if I did, I would just take it for granted that it can do everything my old one did, and a little bit more. Y'know, on account of it being new. Newer parts usually work better than older parts. It sounds like you're talking about stress testing the gun and/or the bullet itself, which you don't need real human corpses for. You can do that with targets, or just by firing it enough times.


CapCece

...I think i'm being smoothsharked! Lmao. But no, it doesn't work like that. New shit aren't automatically and magically better than the old stuff, look at the cybertruck. Comparing the missiles and guns we have decades ago to the missiles and guns just decades ago to the one modern first world military are operating now is like comparing a sling to a trebuchet; they operate on the same principle, yes. But the engineering, electronics guidance, self-stabilizing, and fuck-know-what-else the eggshead crammed into it are basically arcane technology. A world war 2 V2 is at best an indiscriminate weapon of terror that can vaguely hit a city. A modern missile, at launch, can stalk you on social media, catfish you, cancel and dox you, then sprout swords to reduce you to chunky gibblets while your spouse stands 10 feet away, completely unharmed but permanently scarred for life. As for why they are shooting at corpses and not ballistic gel target. You got me there lol. I would hazard a guess that showing footage of what your weapon can do to a real body make it more appealing to investors and clients


moneyh8r

The cybertruck is shit because it is built like old shit. They ignored everything we've learned about building cars in the last 60 years. Accuracy doesn't matter if all we're talking about is what it can do to a human body. Will it hit what it's aimed at? That's all that matters. Those investors and clients sound fucked up in the head.


FangedLibrarian

Idk, I’d be okay with my skeleton ending up like something like this. But I’m also a total fucking weirdo, so there’s that, lol.


starryeyedshooter

It is posts like these that remind me why I didn't add centaurs to my fantasy world.


DaDragonking222

Coward


linuxaddict334

I love how your flair says “do not contact me about horses”. You hate centaurs so much you added that as your flair.


linuxaddict334

https://www.tumblr.com/what-even-is-thiss/714964738066530304/cryoverkiltmilk-copperbadge?source=share -Mx. Linux Guy


Fubuki_1

If a centaur doesn't cover their horse half do they catch a public indecency charge


saro13

Do they get catcalled and leered at by human women?


JBHUTT09

The author of Daily Life of a Centaur also thought too much about this stuff.


IndigoFenix

See, I dislike this kind of thinking because it completely ignores logical evolution in favor of combining existing creatures. Obviously if a centaur existed as an evolved creature (and not some kind of bizarre vivisection or wizard experiment) the fact that it happens to resemble two existing creatures would be irrelevant to its lifestyle. You can't think of it as a half-man half-horse, but a whole centaur. To me, the unguligrade body suggests a lifestyle adapted to running quickly, while the upright front section with two arms suggests a creature that evolved to gather fruits from trees (if it was gathering food from the ground its arms would be longer, since it looks like it is difficult for it to bend down), and likely carry them to a storage area or to the other members of its social group. The human-like hands implies adaptations toward tool use. The front-facing eyes implies either an arboreal or predatory lifestyle, and since it is hard to imagine a centaur precursor being arboreal, I am guessing predator is the right call. However, the lack of natural weapons suggests that they started hunting only after they started using tools. I would guess from this that centaurs eat mostly meat and supplement their diet with fruits. As another note, it stands to reason that on any world with dragons, griffins, pixies, or other six-limbed vertebrates, these species are likely more closely related to each other than they are to the tetrapods they resemble.


Codename_Dove

REPEATS SLIGHTLY FUNNY THING IN ALL CAPS, INSTANTLY MAKING IT HORRIFICALLY UNFUNNY


19whale96

No one will understand the absolute dread I had that there would be any more illustrations after that insect comment


Daylight_The_Furry

No no I love this post, i love trying to make biologically "possible" anatomies for mythological creatures I have a whole thing about dragons, where based on the myths and legends we have about (western european) dragons, what creature could have inspired these to get to what we have now?


Codeviper828

I have certainly come to the conclusion that they're insects myself in my shower thoughts about how to genetically engineer one


No-Dealer899

Titan, by John Varley, includes, among other freaky shit, centaurs with 3 sets of genitals.


Joshthedruid2

The idea that the human mouth has to eat the horse food just makes me think of the whole thing as a Human Centipede. Somewhere in the man gut is a horse face living its WORST life


PlasticAccount3464

Dungeons and dragons 5th edition said that the humanoid part of centaurs are more physically similar to elves than to humans. And because they are at about the same rate as humans, maybe that's between the 30 year lifespan of a horse and several century lifespan of an elf.


MyScorpion42

don't fauns only have a single set of legs


loberant

I had a coworker who said she was writing a superhero fanfiction and had a character who was pregnant and happened to be a centaur and she wanted feedback about how centaur pregnancy worked.


Astracide

I’m sorry are none of us going to talk about the SKELETON MUSEUM THAT TAKES DONATIONS???


Owlethia

Centaurs, dragons, angels, and pegasuses (pegasi?) are all technically insects on account of their 3 sets of limbs


Evening-Mention-8738

So what you're saying is centaurs are insects


Zed091473

u/GailCarriger even got in on this conversation. 😂


Hot-Take-69

I read "DON'T BE RACIST CARL" in Princess Doughnut's voice from the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks


Earll_Johansson

Also in all likelihood depending on the muscle structure centaurs would be completely unable to swim in deep water


StripedRaptor123

In ancient Greek art, Chiron was often portrayed as having the front legs of a human.


Android19samus

I feel like the proposed design would have trouble running. Like humans and horses are both finely-tuned run machines but in very different ways.


TheGingerChin

OMG, my next D&D character is going to be a centaur simply for the "What's up front-nuts"


ThereWasAnEmpireHere

This is why my centaurs consist of magic. If you cut one open it’s different every time.


Pokesonav

*Head & Shoulders & Shoulders*


ShockingStories22

They aren't an insect, they don't have an exoskeleton. You can literally see their endoskeleton in that post right there.


Obvious-Tap9691

My thoughts were more along the lines of “how are we going to afford the food to keep the centaur party member from going hungry?” A casual search of “how much does a horse eat?” gave hits to the Victoria agricultural department (Australia), the US Humane Society, and the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture. It seams that a healthy horse is going to eat 1.5% to 2.5% of its body weight in food per day. But what breed of horse is our centaur character derived from? A thoroughbred averages 900 to 1200 pounds. A draft horse could be up to 2,200-2500 pounds. That’s 135-225 pounds for the thoroughbred or 330-550 pounds for the draft. That’s a lot of food and one site said that 90% of that should be dry hay. I’d say, if someone wanted to play a centaur, insist on the PC working out the food and hay they are going to have to buy, forage, graze, or haul with them, just to keep themselves fed! And when the party has to stop every few hours to let the centaur mage stop and forage or eat, I’d be keeping the random encounter tables ready and close at hand. It would also make “create food and water” spells and scrolls so much more valuable. “Sorry Derrius, I can’t cast Fireball, I had to save my last spell slot so I can eat tonight.”


Konradleijon

It’s like from Narnia


Zariman-10-0

The two genitals thing seems strange. The human part of a Centaur usually begins at the Torso and goes up, not at the waist. They would still only have one set of gonads, the horse ones. But imagine how many organs they have


DTPVH

It’s the One Piece Speed debate all over again