My party had an encounter with Centaurs.
One of the players rolled rather good for nature and discussins details we all noticed again what a pile of horsecrap centaur anatomy is.
So we started wondering.
Where do Centaurs on Golarion come from? Are they created, a natural species or a magical accident?
And we wondered how many...redundant parts they actually have.
We all would love to learn more about centaurs on golarion in the long run (and I am personally also intrigued about them as a player option at some point)
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Pathfinder wiki has some good info on this, and the Monster Codex of the campaign setting line also has a section on them. To sum:
1) Centaurs probably originated from Iblydos (Golarion's realm of Greek mythology), but have since settled all around the world, most particularly in the Isle of Kortos, Iobaria, the Menador Mountains, and in the plains of south-central Garund near Geb. To my knowledge, there are also three distinct centaur ethnicities identified: the Azorva, Rashalka, and Tsolniva
2) Naturally occurring ancestry, I think.
3) Pathfinder lore tends not to get into detail overmuch about anatomical stuff. The answer is probably going to be whatever you decide it should be. On a tangential note there, there are variant centaurs in Razmiran whose anatomy is flipped: human body with a horse head.
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Pathfinder wiki has some good info on this, and the Monster Codex of the campaign setting line also has a section on them. To sum:
1) Centaurs probably originated from Iblydos (Golarion's realm of Greek mythology), but have since settled all around the world, most particularly in the Isle of Kortos, Iobaria, the Menador Mountains, and in the plains of south-central Garund near Geb. To my knowledge, there are also three distinct centaur ethnicities identified: the Azorva, Rashalka, and Tsolniva
2) Naturally occurring ancestry, I think.
3) Pathfinder lore tends not to get into detail overmuch about anatomical stuff. The answer is probably going to be whatever you decide it should be. On a tangential note there, there are variant centaurs in Razmiran whose anatomy is flipped: human body with a horse head.
Razmir has Tikbalang?
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I have extensive experience in discussing and thinking about Centaur anatomy.
To sum it up;
Due to the size of centaurs, they have the reproductive system of a horse in the same location as a horse does. They have to give birth to horse sized offspring, so there is no point in having human reproductive anatomy in that case.
Their offspring are given birth to kind of folded up (their human part completely bent backwards so it lies flush with the horse spine) and the "front" of the horse first. Otherwise it would be like trying to ram a "L" shaped Tetris piece all the way through a space that should only fit a straight Tetris piece.
If the baby centaur comes out backwards or not folded up, both the baby and the mother dies as it would get irreversibly stuck.
The most logical arrangement of internal organs is probably the digestive tract (possibly with a larger stomach or multiple stomachs to accommodate a more varied diet then what horses eat, more on this later) in the horse body. A larger heart and lungs in the human part takes up much of the human part of the body, with potentially an additional heart in the horse body. You couldn't really put lungs in the horse body because of how far the ousophagus has to travel from the mouth, which is why the lungs in the human part are massive.
Their diet is omnivorous - human uprightness and hands and binocular eyes only make sense on an omnivorous creature. They hunt, gather fruit from trees and large bushes (the smaller children might gather from regular bushes and some roots as they are low to the ground), and keep herds of cattle.
Farming is very difficult for them because their hands are so far above the ground, and for the same reason they can't eat grass. Because of the inability to farm, they are nomadic and tribal.
They probably still domesticate horses (as horses exist in the same regions they do) simply to use them as pack animals that can keep pace with them.
They mostly inhabit steppes and plains for obvious reasons. They might act as mercenaries for various kingdoms who want effective scouts/light cavalry. They don't have a tradition of wearing heavy armour to act as shock cavalry as their lack of farming means no permanent settlements in which to forge such armour.
They couldn't have two story structures or mines or anything anyway because both environments would lead to broken legs.
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The most logical arrangement of internal organs is probably the digestive tract (possibly with a larger stomach or multiple stomachs to accommodate a more varied diet then what horses eat, more on this later) in the horse body. A larger heart and lungs in the human part takes up much of the human part of the body, with potentially an additional heart in the horse body. You couldn't really put lungs in the horse body because of how far the ousophagus has to travel from the mouth, which is why the lungs in the human part are massive.
I had the same thoughts. Digestive system (and reproductive stuff) is safe to fit entirely in the lower horse body, while the upper human torso contains much larger lungs.
But I had a separate heart in each body, as even a large heart in the human body would be hard-pressed to pump blood all the way to the horse hindquarters I feel, while a larger-than-normal horse-body-heart might not get enough oxygenated blood to the human brain. The horse heart would be primary, with the human torso heart would be secondary and sort of push the blood that extra mile up into the head and down the arms into the hands (it would be less of a full-scale heart with chambers that could work at cross-purposes to the central heart, and more a ring of contractile muscle tissue around the central arteries and veins in the lower to mid-human-torso section of the centaur).
And yes, I too have too many thoughts about such esoterica, from a childhood on a farm. :)
I had the same thoughts. Digestive system (and reproductive stuff) is safe to fit entirely in the lower horse body, while the upper human torso contains much larger lungs.But I had a separate heart in each body, as even a large heart in the human body would be hard-pressed to pump blood all the way to the horse hindquarters I feel, while a larger-than-normal horse-body-heart might not get enough oxygenated blood to the human brain. The horse heart would be primary, with the human torso heart would be secondary and sort of push the blood that extra mile up into the head and down the arms into the hands (it would be less of a full-scale heart with chambers that could work at cross-purposes to the central heart, and more a ring of contractile muscle tissue around the central arteries and veins in the lower to mid-human-torso section of the centaur).
And yes, I too have too many thoughts about such esoterica, from a childhood on a farm. :)
Yeah, the two hearts thing makes sense (which is why I mentioned it as an option).
Am I the only one who gets really excited whenever they see a centaur in a movie? The Chronicles of Narnia movies and Bright (a centaur in full riot gear) where both pretty terrible, but I lost my mind when I saw centaurs in those movies. The worldbuilding questions they raise are really fun.
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I have extensive experience in discussing and thinking about Centaur anatomy.
Excellent posts. Thanks a lot for these, both you and Set.
They couldn't have two story structures or mines or anything anyway because both environments would lead to broken legs.
I think it is stairs that would be dangerous. Other means of ascent/descent (ramps for one) should be okay.
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I'm also thinking having 2 hearts may explain the smaller lifespan (60 years)?
It's easier to die from heart attack (or even being killed) once that need's only one heart stops to kill a centaur.
Also the omnivorous diet may increase the need for energy rich food like fat animals. This may also increase the arterial blockage risk due to this need of more fat rich animals once the fruit's only diet is too ineffective for them.