The Dark Lord

Hi, I wanted to ask about one of your centaur worldbuilding posts. The one about capture-the-flag-wrestling-keep-away game. You mentioned "Using one of your littlest rider cousins". So centaurs have human cousins? Or at least human-appearing. Do you mean that as in literally, i.e., blood related? Or is it more spiritually, like family friends that are essentially family? Additionally, can humans be part of a centaur herd if this is the case?

Tossing these two together since they’re kinda related, thanks for asking I love talking about these guys! Riders typically have both a centaur and humanoid halves making up an extended family group. The groups consider each other family, raise their children together, often share flocks and homes, and will call each other cousin/uncle/grandmother.

So humans can definitely be part of the centaur herd! But with my Riders in particular the culture is pretty much 50/50 centaur/humanoid. It probably started with rider/runner pairs raising their families together as a result of their war-time bonds, but as the children are raised together they frequently find ready-made pairs among the other children as they grow up playing rider games together, thus deepening the bonds between the families.

Only so much "horseplay” allowed before the elders are yelling about “Get off their back! You’ll be swaybacked by 30 if you keep that up!”

As prospective warriors get older and closer to joining a war party, if they don’t have a partner already, the best way to find someone you work with well is the games! GoatPull, Racing, and Wrestling are all great informal ways to test out prospective partners and get to know how the other moves and build trust! Even for partnered pairs, they will sometimes switch riders/runners as part of the fun. Usually if the pair are raised together as siblings their bond will be pretty solid by the time they are grown. For those finding each other as adults there is typically a lot of trust-building and weapons drilling together before they actually face battle together. And even then a few pairs may dissolve after their first battle if on decides they aren’t made for the battlefield. It’s rare but happens, along with the usual death a battlefield entails. If the remaining half chooses to go on as a fighter, they will find a new partner in the same way. Usually with growing up playing games with the whole tribe, everyone knows a few Riders they would get along with reasonably well.

There’s a lot of trust when you’re putting someone on your back with a sword or bow and arrow that you wont end up with those weapons in you instead of the enemy, or if you’re standing and firing from a charging centaur’s back that you wont end up on the ground in the middle of a fight. There’s a LOT of communication, trust, and practice involved in a Rider pair to ensure that the rider doesn’t get tossed by an unexpected maneuver or put a sword in their runner’s shoulder trying to regain balance during the stress of a battle.