(Description pasted from dA)

"Humans think they are smarter than me, but am pretty clever. Beat one in a battle of wits once. He bet that could beat me at human word game. Accepted challenge then bashed his head against a wall until he couldn't string two words together. Ha! Totally outsmarted him!"

So for the first time in years, I'm creating a new character. Meet Kyrophon of the Cnossi! The Cnossi are intended for the same fantasy universe as Azira and the Kutrahl and while I still have very little idea of an overarching plot, Kyrophon and Azira are going to end up working together with maybe a few others. In coming up with races for the setting, I decided that I wanted to have one race exemplify one side of the traditional alignment matrix. Humans are lawful, the Kutrahl are evil. The Cnossi are intended to be the chaotic race.

The defining characteristic of the Cnossi is their incredible size and strength. With the largest males standing 4m tall and weighing over a ton, there isn't much that can stand in their path and not be crushed or pushed aside. This causes their society to orientate in a certain way. In order to sustain themselves, males in particular have to consume a fittingly huge number of calories worth of food. Cnossi tribes are small and semi-nomadic in order to be able to work enough land to provide their required food intake. Fully grown males are substantially larger than females, although children of both sexes are similarly sized. Upon hitting adolescence, male Cnossi experience a huge and sudden growth spurt, often more than tripling their body weight in just a couple of years. The food requirements for this growth are extremely steep and the torrent of highly concentrated male growth hormones flooding their bloodstreams to drive such a drastic change causes catastrophic emotional instability. Individuals in this phase become hyper-aggressive, violently lustful and completely irrational, making them both exceptionally dangerous and very expensive to keep around the tribe.

The cultural solution to this problem has been that young males are raised knowing that upon reaching this point in their development they will be exiled from the tribe and forced to survive alone in the wilderness until they have matured past being a danger to the tribe. They are then expected to accumulate enough wealth (by any means) to pay an expensive dowry in order to rejoin a tribe. Only once a male has proven that he has the strength and presence of mind to independently raise enough resources to support a wife can he be allowed to rejoin Cnossan society. Despite being trained through their childhood, not all males pass the rite. Many are killed, either by starvation, by wild animals, the elements, or even each other. The ones who return typically marry several times after rejoining a tribe to make up the resulting deficit of eligible males. Kyrophon is almost fully grown and is mostly in control of his faculties. The fury and aggression never leaves, but has to be integrated and brought under control, to be unleashed when it is needed and tamped down around friends and allies. This self-mastery and acceptance of chaos is very important to the Cnossan and their most revered heroes and leaders are renowned for being completely unprovokable. However, younger and less mature individuals like Kyrophon have only recently developed the self-control to let another living creature come within arms reach without immediately trying to tear it in half and passivity requires a conscious effort. Suffice to say it isn't wise for members of smaller races to test their patience on purpose.

Like many of his kind who survive their time in the wilderness, once Kyrophon was able to think straight, he made contact with the human kingdoms seeking to earn enough to return home with honour. Humans regard hiring Cnossi as a risky but highly lucrative business venture. One Cnossan can do the manual labour or fighting of 10-20 men, but improperly treated or slighted in some way, they could level an entire village before being brought under control. Cnossi are significantly less intelligent on average than humans, with an estimated average IQ of about 75. Dealing with them requires patience and honesty because while they can be imperceptive and slow-witted, they have long and very accurate memories. Kyrophon initially worked as a labourer in a small farming community, but was acquired as a mercenary several months later by the local king who was scrambling to defend his borders against an invasion from a neighbouring power. Led by a mighty and famous Cnossan warlord named Phrynikos, the 35 Cnossi were armoured from horns to hooves in heavy plate armour and fought in the centre of the king's army where fighting was heaviest. Desperately outnumbered, collapsing on all sides and in danger of being surrounded, the king's army almost capitulated, but Phrynikos' sheer gravitas drove his soldiers on and despite being decimated by repeated attacks, the handful of remaining Cnossi never gave an inch. After several hours of furious battle, the human defenders were finally able to rally to them and eventually push back and rout the exhausted invaders.

Hailed as heroes, the surviving Cnossi were happy to receive their honours and participate in victory feasts, but Kyrophon barely understands the significance of his actions to the human kingdom, claiming that he had a great time smashing soldiers and horses and bragging that it was because of his negotiating skills that he was allowed to keep his weapon and armour after the battle.

Somewhat larger and more intelligent than average, Kyrophon is the first son of a chieftain's first wife and believes he is capable of attaining similar status if he puts the work in to accomplish it.
Personality wise, he can be deceptively cheerful and optimistic for a Cnossan. He is enthusiastic about any task he is doing and loves to listen to stories of adventure, be they true or otherwise. Like many of his kind, he has fairly open contempt for the interests and laws of humans and members of other smaller races, but at the same time he understands that being co-operative and helping people, even tiny, weak people, is a good way to get them or their friends to help him back later. He has a rational perspective on his own strengths and limitations and recognises that things that are trivial for him are impossible for others and vice versa. Unprovoked, Kyrophon is rarely domineering over smaller species. He holds his physical superiority to be self-evident and he feels little need to assert himself over others unless he is directly challenged (at which stage he will assert himself, with overwhelming force). As such, so long as a certain amount of politeness and respect is observed, he is generally agreeable and open to co-operation.

Anyhow, I've had an awesome time creating this character and there's more fluff to come about him too! I've always wanted a minotaur character to be quite honest, I really enjoy thinking up situations for characters like this with such a lopsided statline. I'm really pleased with him and I think the picture itself came out quite well. I'm going to turn the armoured version of him into a standalone picture of him on the battlefield too. Right, I've waffled too long and none of you have even read this far. Criticism, constructive or otherwise perfectly welcome. Tell me what you think of both the picture and the concepts.