Kulseus the Minotaur of Matchalk

Minotaur Shatter Charge

The minotaur appears seemingly out of nowhere, snorting, stamping, and filled with rage. It’s bellowing fills your senses as it smashes everything around it as it moves, head butting, hooking with horns, kicking and ramming all in its path.

Save vs wands, +4 if not the primary target
Maximum damage to target (gore), half damage to everyone one within 5′ and failed save drops everything held on either hand, including shields (non-magical shields destroyed). Also douses non-magical light sources, destroying their sources.
Tactics: He will go through a room and exit, the confusion making it hard for the PCs to track him; on and on until he below half HP then he stands and fights! Once he gets to less than 20 hp, he will drop his spear and use natural attacks
+1 Spear of Dark Swiftness (+1 initiative as well as vs. lawful creatures); consecrated to Sun-Stealer!
dd+4 healing

The Dark Gods Gift of Confusion

The Curse of Single Combat!

The Minotaur has a special curse powered by the god Sun Stealer that was invoked by the summoning ritual. Anyone who agrees to fight him in single combat will rise as a skeleton (after the minotaur eats the flesh off them) in service to him. He rarely has done single combat. Though he challenges many… if the fight goes against he will give up honor and instruct his minions to save him.

Back Story

A Sinister Plan

The evil conjurer Thasior of Ados was portraying himself as part of the Order of Solars in the far reaches of the borderlands in Matchalk. He gained fame using his power as a war wizard. Secretly, he was building a cult, followers of the dark god Sun-Stealer. On the frontier, his exploits og grizzly power and death were thanked as he fought against the Orrish of the southern mountains. Within his countless sojourns and kills, he hid his many murders and sacrifices. As a prelude to unleashing his cult upon unsuspecting locals, he summoned a fell creature to serve as a rallying point. He picked a beast that was also part of his own sigil – the minotaur. Long had he been working on a ritual that would bring forth a champion and lead his cult to victory and allow him to either rule locally or to gain enough riches to retire.

Plans Spoiled

Unfortunately, Thasior was betrayed by his apprentice Terrence and the protective circle was broken when summoning the minotaur. The Minotaur killed Thasior, and ate his body… empowering his own dark magics and the minotaur. The minotaur left into the night, taking with him the knowledge from the eaten mage of an ancient altar where the magus was going to unseal a curse and begin his campaign of terror. The minotaur fled into the night, with the single minded purpose of seeing the magus’s dream of violence and terror inflicted on the locals. The terrified apprentice took his masters name and adopted a disguise and has since toned down his practice and feigned retirement… with all the massive incomes his master had earned in thanks granting him a life of luxury. He had no idea what he had unleashed and the good name he hoped to inherit from his master would become associated with the cunning creature he had unleashed.

Bad Assumptions

The apprentice thought the Minotaur would eventually be taken care of, either by the Orrish, other freebooters, or an armed posse of townsfolk. Little did he know how it would unfold. Rumors of the minotaur beast and its suspicious connection to the heraldry of the magus Thasior have been forcing him to keep a lower and lower profile, even to travel and avoid the area. And now, he bides his time and hides from the spotlight. He seeks to move away from the area and start over fresh, leveraging what he can of the name and reputation without having to prove himself.

An Unfortunate Set of Circumstances

The Minotaur proved formidable. Imbued with the fury of the dark god and his warrior spirit, and carrying the scattered intellect and memories of the dead wizard, he made his way into the more remote eastern edges of the barony. There he stole tools and began to dig, using the incomplete holes in his thoughts as a map, seeking the dark shrine of evil chaos. By the time he found it, he had raided flocks and even killed a traveler or two. Drawn in by its power, he began to capture beasts and humanoids, sacrificing victims to it. Soon, the Orrish – both orks and goblins – that were led by the priesthood of Sun Stealer and his dark siblings spread word of the shrine’s growing power. Through their channels, and by virtue of the continued killings, the cult grew… attracting all manner of foul humanoids and creatures in the area. The beast was subtly manipulated by the dark god and his servitors and a plan was made to build an army and drench the area in blood. Settlements of all sizes have begun to be raided – farms, mining camps, villages, hamlets and even some small towns.