Taru-saug ( sometimes referred to as 'rhinotaurs' )are the largest known sentient species of Caranoctia. These primitive relatives of the common centaur stand over eight feet high and tip the scales at seven thousand pounds and can live to be over a hundred and fifty years old. The population of about 3,000 is found only on a large island of the great inland sea.

Taru-saug have few predators once they reach adult size and are generally placid beings, slow moving and slow to anger, but when they do become disturbed, watch out! An upset taru-saug quickly explodes into berserker rage and they're fully capable of physically cashing any anger check they write. They have excellent hearing and sense of smell, but are very nearsighted, so it's advisable not to startle them. As a consequence of their poor vision, they do not produce much art because fine detail is simply lost to them. They do carve boulders with decorative runes which commemorate meaningful events and illustrate stories in bas-relief. Huge stone steles are also used to mark territorial boundaries and tell time rather in the manner of Stonehenge.

Taru-saug are not social creatures, probably because each one requires such massive amounts of forage - mostly leaves and grasses - every day just to keep itself alive. There are two basic social groups: a mother and her sub-adult children and a male and a coterie of his adolescent and adult sons. A male's territory encompasses several smaller female territories. The male's duty is to tend to the land, farming it, building bridges, ridding it of predators and otherwise making it suitable for feminine occupation. Otherwise, his 'wives' will depart and take up residence with a more conscientious husband. Being roughly equal in size and strength, there isn't anything the male could do to restrain her even if he wanted to.

Females and males only come together to mate. The females bear a single calf, very rarely twins, about once every three years or so after a year long pregnancy. The calves take ten years to become mature enough to live on their own, so a given female might care for several youngsters at one time. Females sharing the same male's territory will come together once a month, usually at the full moon, to exchange stories and information and perform any other basic social activities.

At maturity, taru-saug females develop an irresistible wanderlust and strike out on their own to establish a territory. By this point the mother is usually glad to see them go, as their increasing independence takes the form of squabbling and contrariness. Adolescent males will seek out an adult male to serve as 'squires', ostensibly learning the old tales and tricks to impressing the females, but in fact being treated as little more than slaves, farming the male's territory and taking care of all the little day to day chores so the adult male can occupy himself with exercise, grooming, polishing his horn, practicing tale-telling and otherwise doing everything he can to make himself attractive to his wives. Usually the squires are his own sons, but he doesn't hesitate to accept outsider males - who will, it's true, not be treated as well as his own flesh and blood ( guess who gets to muck out the pond? )

Because they are such loners, taru-saug culture and history is mainly passed on in the form of long, intricate, morally instructive stories which a mother recites to her children or a male to his squires. These are in the form of epic poetry, and young taru-saug memorize them with astonishing speed and clarity of recall. Taru-saug think of the archetypical heroes and heroines of these tales as acting through them to guide their lives, much the way voodoo practitioners are ridden by loa. A taru-saug will not say, "I'm pissed!", she will say, "The ghost of the red-tailed one roars through me!", the red-tailed one being the star of a certain well-known poem. Unless one is very familiar with their tales, it can be almost impossible to decipher what a taru-saug is trying to tell you.