Questing for the Maruuk Centaur, I just couldn’t help but feel like something was off in a bad way about how they’re portrayed in this expansion, with a lot of aspects of their society seeming to not make much sense.
Look at some of their catch phrases when you interact with them:
“May your prey fly low and run slow.”
Why? Wouldn’t it make more sense if the phrase was “May your prey be mighty and fierce”? You know, to emphasize the glory and prestige that comes with a successful hunt? You can’t say that they don’t care about glory and just want to feed their tribe, there are numerous quests where you’re asked to hunt ridiculously dangerous creatures for no reason other than the ‘glory of the hunt’. It’s something they emphasize in their culture -constantly-. I thought in this sort of barbarian-ish culture, they would celebrate a good hunt, not a weak and pathetic one.
“Be respectful”
This just doesn’t sound like something a tribe of primitive warriors would say, unless you add a comma and then a “-or I will crush you” or something of the like afterwards. Something like “Mind your tongue” would be more appropriate in this context. The whole ‘be respectful’ just seems really out of place.
They’re also extremely tolerant of same-sex relationships (Hunter Narman and Windsage Dawa) and even supportive of it even though it means their bloodline will end (Bloodlines are valued significantly in the cultures these centaur are based on). Additionally, they’re very loving, cuddling, and caring with their animals (One of them even giggles as their pet wolf/lion prances around them in circles). I can see them caring affectionately for their beast companions, but it doesn’t feel right seeing them be so silly and playful with them. The hunter-beast relationship should feel more like a respectful bond rather than a cute and cuddly one.
Something just feels…off about a tribe of primitive warriors who decorate their encampments with bones and spikes, yet are really silly/goofy/humorous and welcoming to outsiders. IMO It would feel a lot better if you were captured and/or disliked by them at first and had to earn their respect overtime instead of just being welcomed immediately.
They’re also very racially diverse, which normally I have no problem with, but in this particular setting, I can’t help but wonder how a tribe of numeral insignificance that has lived in total isolation from the rest of the world for thousands of years can be racially diverse? Wouldn’t their ancestors have long ago bred the tribe into an ethnically homogenous group with almost no distinguishing racial features?
One last thing that doesn’t make much sense to me is that they’re apparently a matriarchal society, which is totally fine for races where the Females are the more physically dominate sex (Gnolls, Quillboar, Magnataur) but with how the centaur are portrayed in this expansion, the males, like Balakar Khan, are shown to tower over the other female Khans, enough that he dwarves the lot of them in size. If the males are shown to get much bigger and stronger than the females, how is it possible that any Female Khans are in power? In a society where physical strength and might determines who is the most capable to lead, why would any centaur be okay with a smaller Khan of lesser strength leading them?
At the end of the day you can just say “It’s a video game, bro”, but for me, it’s really hard to get invested in their story when very little about their culture makes sense. Which is a real shame too since I feel like they did an amazing job fleshing out the Tuskarr and Drakonids.