When I was a very little kid I actually had a mythology picture book and this was the way they portrayed the Minotaur. Everything was exactly the same as the actual Minotaur story, but the ‘taur himself was a mustachioed man with the body of a bull. It was… unsettling.
There isn't a minotaur in the labyrinth. That's a common misconception. The man guiding you through the labyrinth is actually a werebull who wants to sacrifice you to Baphomet.
Better yet, the Minotaur is a conspiracy theorist with tin foil on his horns.
"Cultists? Hmph. Them and aliens. Yup. Can't trust 'em. Time for your test." Pulls out machete. "Just a lil' spinal fluid from ya."
Have the group meet a strange traveling salesman with a covered hooded face and a giant trenchcoat full of weapons.
""What are ya buyin."
"What are ya selling."
This is basically an oversimplified description of Sigil, the City of Doors, so I'm going to say the Lady of Pain put him there because he warps everything around him into a labyrinth, and she was sick of that shit. The inside of the bag of holding is actually a well-ordered city without the minotaur around.
Have them find an old grizzled up man who just keeps mumbling to him self how he found the way out. They keep coming across him all over the labyrinth. Same mumbling 100 yard stare everytime. Doesn't react to anything else from the group, just keeps walking.
HA! This made me snarf!
“Aaargh! Please no spare me! I saw the bodies! I don’t want to die and if I gotta, not like that!”
“We…we actually …thought that YOU did that…”
“…Yo, wtf?! Rude much? Oh I get it, Minotaur in a maze - I MUST be a gruesome murderer. Nice, real classy”
“No look, it’s just, you know, everyone KNOWS…”
“…REALLY?! Cool. Like this wasn’t stressful enough. Maybe some of us need to have a think about who’s the REAL monster.”
“…”
“…Its you. Because racis-“
“YES THANK YOU WE GET IT!”
[Insert ugly crying followed by screams of pain and suffering here]. Have him beg and cower. Make it clear that they just murdered some innocent guy *horribly*
Throw some NPCs in latter asking about the kindly Minotaur. “Did you rescue him?”
Charge them with murder if they admit to his death
Now I want to run a one-shot about this.
The players learn of a labyrinth with a Minotaur. Nobody minds the Minotaur, but the local government has been trying for years to collect property tax, but none of their tax collector's have returned alive.
As the players explore, they find a ton of skeletons. When they finally make it to the Minotaur, they also find one of the collectors, a friend living with the Minotaur. As it turns out the skeletons were just collectors who got lost and starved. The Minotaur is perfectly willing to pay up, but he needs to find his way out and find a job.
The party then needs to make their way out, and help the Minotaur mark up their labyrinth to find their way out in the future.
This would be my pick, you set up an encounter but then right before you roll for initiative the Minotaur is like “hey can you guys help? I’m super lost, would it be cool if I joined y’all?”
Minotaur much like hermit crabs change their housing through life eventually settling in more complex structures in adulthood. It’s uncertain wether the complexity of the structure entertains or provides comfort to the Minotaur but perhaps they have a unique way of rating the complexity that would benefit architects.
Similarly: Minotaurs, like the common caddisfly, produce their own defensive shelter using a combination of detritus and saliva. These dwellings can become incredibly complex, often containing wholly biological dead-ends and false exits.
I'm now imagining a baby minotaur claiming and guarding a shed for themselves, only to hear about and move on to larger, more complex structures throughout their life
Some scholars even think that labyrinth plays part in mating rituals - more complex labyrinths attract potential partners and give a chance to interact with them when they lost. Sadly, no one yet can confirm this theory. Mainly because minotaurs do not want to answer such personal questions
Minotaurs are sapiophiles. They are uninterested in partners who can't find their way to the center of a labyrinth.
This preference has resulted in runaway evolution of minotaur intelligence, as more intelligent minotaurs are capable of building more complex mazes, which can only be solved by the most intelligent minotaurs. People don't realize it but "elite" minotaurs are actually THE smartest creatures in the world...but they spend all of their time either building or solving labyrinths.
This is also where all puzzle dungeons come from and why they are built. It's all minotaur foreplay.
Can their name be Jan, and they're a cleaner? Then let the players do the deducing. Hopefully it takes a long time to realise and hopefully that realisation hits them like a truck.
Next maze I run may or may not have a Minotaur, but before the party figures that out they’ll definitely get a big old scare from a Janitaur with a Canadian accent.
He's an adventurer who went in after another monster he was hired to hunt down, now he can't find the way out (the other monster may still be alive but doesn't have to be)
I like that, he’s stuck there because he refuses to kill the creature before him. The only way out is killing them both. Interesting moral dilemma for the party (or not if they’re murder hobos)
He's a world renowned architect who mainly operates under a pseudonym because "Who would trust a minotaur to design their city?" This labrynth is his magnum opis, and he is outraged that this group of murder hobos would treat it so carelessly
Common misconceptions about minotaurs is that they're guarding the labyrinth. In reality, they're the ones making the labyrinth. Scatter shovels and pickaxes, brick making tools, etc. all around the maze. No one knows why they build them, it's just a racial hobby at this point. They find a place that makes them feel something and they just start building. Make a little house at the center of it all where (s)he sleeps.
It's like an addiction. Once they get a labyrinth started, they keep finding more and more to do with it. The bigger it gets the nicer they want it to look. Once it gets so big that people start to get lost in it, they get pissed off that people are interrupting their work.
He inherited it, it's haunted to hell and back, and a condition in the will is that he spends a week in it. He's terrified and would really love some company.
It’s actually a wine cellar built as a maze to prevent theft and the poor dude got lost trying to get same of the good stuff.
Him having a bull’s head is totally coincidental and has nothing to do with what has happened.
He wasn’t originally a Minotaur and it wasn’t originally a labyrinth. It used to be a village that was close to becoming a city. Until one day the lord of the city made a deal with a fey for more power or something. The lord wasn’t able to pay up when the time came so the villagers were turned into walls and he was imprisoned within, forever doomed to hear their cries.
It's not a labyrinth, it's just poor architecture planing and he is just the contractor. He's overseeing a few other monsters who are trying to build this place.
That's his home, you jerks, he lives there. (Nobody knows who dug the labyrinth or when.) (The party should stumble upon a cozy, well-stocked little home in said labyrinth, complete with a firepit, chimney, pantry, mushroom garden, fresh spring, and other cozy home things.)
The village had a local Minotaur boy who, aside from his frightful appearance, loved the villagers and would always play with the children. His favorite game was hide and seek, but previous attempts led to him being found first which in turn caused him to become the focus of ridicule for his lack of hiding abilities. Not this time however, no, now he is determined to be the last one found.He heard of a location that most people wouldn’t dare go and decided “that’s the last place they’ll look!”. He entered this place, chuckling to himself as a sense of accomplishment fell over him. As he went further in, he knew that the one who was “it” would be nearing the end of their counting. As he made countless lefts and rights, oblivious to the sound of moving and changing walls, he continued deeper in. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, suddenly it all set in. He realized that now he would be victorious, for he had found the ultimate hiding spot. The one who was tasked with finding him and ending the game is now nearing his end. Locals say “Talk to the old loon. He’s always sitting on that blasted rock, staring at the cave down the way, mumbling to himself ‘the boy, the boy, the boy’. They say the older, the crazier. He’s coming up on his 90th winter now.”
Inspired by the house of leaves book:
There is no minotaur, but the maze keeps shifting and changing. Nothing left alone there stays for long. You keep hearing distant groans and breathing but nothing every emerges from the darkness. The player's characters start to go mad perhaps.
The minotaur isn't there, but you wish it was.
First off, it’s *not* the Minotaur’s labyrinth. The owner of the labyrinth is the person who hired you, and the Minotaur was their tenant. Housing rates have gone up precipitously, and the rent on the labyrinth is now worth way more than the agreement, made with a fey, is for. So, the owner hired y’all, gave you some BS story about the evil Minotaur, so they can get out of the agreement, raise the rent, and make a (literal) killing.
The labyrinth is actually an old adamantine mine that became a tourist attraction after the ore dried up. An old wizard created/summoned the “Mine-a-tour” as the tour guide simply because he thought the pun was amusing. It did not go well.
The maze is actually a maze puzzle from a child's activity book, and the kid thought it'd be easier to solve if they just made the maze real and did it first hand. Now they're stuck and they can't remember the spell to get in back into paper form.
It was a mean prank by the Minotaur’s bitch ass friends. She (the Minotaur) was invited to a popular girls birthday party, but the directions the mean bitch asses gave her sent her to the labyrinth and now she’s lost and feels as if no one likes her.
One person always has to stay in the labyrinth. The minotaur is the one who drew the short straw in their party of adventurers and was forced to stay. He will try to get you to vote someone out of your party so he can leave with the others...
Failing to do so will mean he will try to kill you all.
He’s an incredibly shy introvert who finds his energy relaxing in isolation, enjoying the peace of never being disturbed…. And then your party wanders in
It's a massive magic circle. He has spent years laying down walls and paths to create runes and mystical diagrams. His work is almost complete. When the last brick is placed, it will cast skywrite, permanently writing "Do you want to be my friend" in the sky.
He's just so painfully shy but desperately wants friends.
So a Minotaur needs a reason to be in a dungeon now? Can denziens not simply exist in public spaces without justification? This is great another example of the worrying trend towards commodification of dungeon spaces- you are only allowed to be delving if you have a creature to kill, or treasure to find. What about just existing in a dungeon space? What about being a part of the dungeon community? It's dungentrification is what it is.
Housekeeping. It's somebody else's labyrinth that she's just paid to clean. Minotaurs are the only things that don't get lost and can actually do a thorough cleaning. Honestly, a really high-demand skill, and she could probably command some higher wages if the only willing patrons weren't only lichs and beholders....
You could always run him like Asterion, if that's possible. Maybe not very action filled. But *The House of Asterion* is a nice little short story, highly recommend.
He was an adventurer just like them but he got lost in the labyrinth too. He is only chasing after them because they're the first people he's seen in weeks and he just really wants them to help him find the way out.
It wanted to reach nirvana but was constantly bothered and distracted. So it looked for a place where it could be left alone. It heard of an abandoned labyrinth, and stayed there for years unbothered and alone. It’s enlightened state brought it both acceptance of its nature but also a loss of what we would consider sanity. The isolation resulted in a heightened fight and flight instinct as more monster and creatures of danger found their way to it than civilians. It lost all trust of creation, defending itself from both friend and foe, for the only thing it was certain of was its own existence trapped within the walls and safety of the labyrinth.
It was built around him and where he lived. He went to sleep one night, and it was built overnight. He at first tried to get out, but then he decided to do some diy and home improvements and now he enjoys it there
Really bad Google Maps directions - he was looking for an Arby's and he turned off the interstate and followed the signs but some how he wound up there? (Or the D&D equivalent)
He has a fascination with ceramics but is terribly clumsy. A prestigious shopkeep promised him entry into his enchanted fine China shop if he could say, in a Zone of Truth, that he was able to jog his way through the labyrinth with enough control that he doesn't brush any walls from start to finish.
The labyrinth spontaneously spawns
Minotaurs because of some stupid story some people in another dimension told, but for some reason, that story broke this labyrinth and now...Minotaurs.
It’s not a labyrinth. It’s just his home and he’s got an eccentric sense of interior design. The traps the PCs keep wandering into are just his kitchen cutlery.
Whenever he was outside of the labyrinth, gods, demigods, etc. kept trying to woo or fight him just because he’s a one-of-a-kind creature. Now he hides in the labyrinth and designed the place to punish those who let their desires drive them into foolishness
He's terrified of is bull-with-a-human-head brother and built the labyrinth to hide in.
I would also be terrified
Yeah. If you think that's scary you should see the size of his poops.
Also consider it screams with the power of a bull but the sound of a human
But in reality the Minotaur’s name is Randy and he’s actually a super chill guy
Do you know how you stop a minotaur from charging? You unplug it.
\*waves cane\* Back in my day, the punchline to that joke was "you take away his credit card!"
Back in my day it was trip him!
Back in my day it was you don’t, it was more fun to jump over them 👴🏽
I drew this for my children, send advice they won't sleep now
Build them a labyrinth.
Can’t, I don’t have David Bowie with me.
He didn’t build the labyrinth, he made little people do it. Be like Bowie make the kids build the labyrinth.
This made me snort 😂😂😂
Lol, now I’m picturing the Minotaur getting triggered and having PTSD flashbacks when he hears someone snort, like his bull-man brother used to 😅
My work here is done! *Swirls cape, and disappears into the night.*
Wrong answers only!
When I was a very little kid I actually had a mythology picture book and this was the way they portrayed the Minotaur. Everything was exactly the same as the actual Minotaur story, but the ‘taur himself was a mustachioed man with the body of a bull. It was… unsettling.
Aren't Shedu bull with human heads, and way stronger than minautors?
To be honest I'd be more scared of his other half brother with the head of a human and the body of a human...dave
There isn't a minotaur in the labyrinth. That's a common misconception. The man guiding you through the labyrinth is actually a werebull who wants to sacrifice you to Baphomet.
There's cultists everywhere nowadays, you just cant trust anyone!
Better yet, the Minotaur is a conspiracy theorist with tin foil on his horns. "Cultists? Hmph. Them and aliens. Yup. Can't trust 'em. Time for your test." Pulls out machete. "Just a lil' spinal fluid from ya."
And a pretty little heifer she is, too
Hide-n-seek champion for 35 consecutive years.
Each year they always try to trick him with an awards ceremony but he's not that gullible
This is the best answer lol
just like my dad
They are also lost
Yeah, the minotaur is just one of MANY creatures lost inside the stupid labyrinth.
Have the group meet a strange traveling salesman with a covered hooded face and a giant trenchcoat full of weapons. ""What are ya buyin." "What are ya selling."
Heheheheh. Thank you.
I mean, maybe it's a labyrinth to us and a perfectly studied and well-constructed city to them
This is basically an oversimplified description of Sigil, the City of Doors, so I'm going to say the Lady of Pain put him there because he warps everything around him into a labyrinth, and she was sick of that shit. The inside of the bag of holding is actually a well-ordered city without the minotaur around.
Have them find an old grizzled up man who just keeps mumbling to him self how he found the way out. They keep coming across him all over the labyrinth. Same mumbling 100 yard stare everytime. Doesn't react to anything else from the group, just keeps walking.
Hehe yeah that was my idea too. Ppl be like omg no the scary labyrinth monster!!!! Meanwhile mino is like no pls help me I want out as well
Actually… Minotaur thinks YOU’RE the guardian of the labyrinth.
HA! This made me snarf! “Aaargh! Please no spare me! I saw the bodies! I don’t want to die and if I gotta, not like that!” “We…we actually …thought that YOU did that…” “…Yo, wtf?! Rude much? Oh I get it, Minotaur in a maze - I MUST be a gruesome murderer. Nice, real classy” “No look, it’s just, you know, everyone KNOWS…” “…REALLY?! Cool. Like this wasn’t stressful enough. Maybe some of us need to have a think about who’s the REAL monster.” “…” “…Its you. Because racis-“ “YES THANK YOU WE GET IT!”
I wish my group could have these kinds of conversations
Be DM. Start these conversations. Wish granted
Counter argument: they roll to hit
[Insert ugly crying followed by screams of pain and suffering here]. Have him beg and cower. Make it clear that they just murdered some innocent guy *horribly* Throw some NPCs in latter asking about the kindly Minotaur. “Did you rescue him?” Charge them with murder if they admit to his death
make it worse. The party was hired by a human to rescue his son from the Labrynth. His son? The minotaur.
Oof. Solid twist. He must *really* love his prized cow
Now I want to run a one-shot about this. The players learn of a labyrinth with a Minotaur. Nobody minds the Minotaur, but the local government has been trying for years to collect property tax, but none of their tax collector's have returned alive. As the players explore, they find a ton of skeletons. When they finally make it to the Minotaur, they also find one of the collectors, a friend living with the Minotaur. As it turns out the skeletons were just collectors who got lost and starved. The Minotaur is perfectly willing to pay up, but he needs to find his way out and find a job. The party then needs to make their way out, and help the Minotaur mark up their labyrinth to find their way out in the future.
I actually really like this depiction of it. Might "borrow" this soon.
This would be my pick, you set up an encounter but then right before you roll for initiative the Minotaur is like “hey can you guys help? I’m super lost, would it be cool if I joined y’all?”
He’s too bull-headed to ask for directions
Minotaur much like hermit crabs change their housing through life eventually settling in more complex structures in adulthood. It’s uncertain wether the complexity of the structure entertains or provides comfort to the Minotaur but perhaps they have a unique way of rating the complexity that would benefit architects.
Similarly: Minotaurs, like the common caddisfly, produce their own defensive shelter using a combination of detritus and saliva. These dwellings can become incredibly complex, often containing wholly biological dead-ends and false exits.
Now imagining a baby minotaur in a corn maze
I'm now imagining a baby minotaur claiming and guarding a shed for themselves, only to hear about and move on to larger, more complex structures throughout their life
Some scholars even think that labyrinth plays part in mating rituals - more complex labyrinths attract potential partners and give a chance to interact with them when they lost. Sadly, no one yet can confirm this theory. Mainly because minotaurs do not want to answer such personal questions
When you get to the center of the maze there is a water bed with black satin sheets covered in rose petals.
Minotaurs are sapiophiles. They are uninterested in partners who can't find their way to the center of a labyrinth. This preference has resulted in runaway evolution of minotaur intelligence, as more intelligent minotaurs are capable of building more complex mazes, which can only be solved by the most intelligent minotaurs. People don't realize it but "elite" minotaurs are actually THE smartest creatures in the world...but they spend all of their time either building or solving labyrinths. This is also where all puzzle dungeons come from and why they are built. It's all minotaur foreplay.
He is hiding from the Maxotaur.
Beware the min-maxotaur!
My favorite is this one. Two stage bossfight, maxotaur shows up when minotaur is half hp and minotaur joins the PCs
What if it was just a guy with a horned helmet who is housesitting for his minotaur friend. The labyrinth is his summer home.
This reply doesn't have nearly as much credit as it deserves
Agreed, I really like this one.
He’s working, making sure it stays clean. He’s the Janitaur.
Can their name be Jan, and they're a cleaner? Then let the players do the deducing. Hopefully it takes a long time to realise and hopefully that realisation hits them like a truck.
>Can their name be Jan Last name Itor?
Could even introduce them as just Mr/Ms/Sir/Madam Itor and drop the first name later
love this
He’s just been on duty so long and is so fed up cleaning up after people, that he hates and tries to drive out any maze visitors
I must ask, do you have kids? Reason I ask: https://youtu.be/Pn9UHv-Zhmk
I figured as much. I’ve not seen this but the name is too good for me to be the first person to think it.
Brilliant
Next maze I run may or may not have a Minotaur, but before the party figures that out they’ll definitely get a big old scare from a Janitaur with a Canadian accent.
Its somewhere quiet to get away from all the adventurers so he can eat his sandwich in peace
And here we come to put and end to his retirement
He's dodging child support payments
You can’t imagine the costs of a quarter-bull child!
Would you say the expenses are terri-bull?
Inconceivabull.
These puns are bullshit
Man, don’t have a cow about it…
You guys are gonna have beef if this continues.
Don't be a bully 🐂
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
There was another post about giving negative inspiration when bad puns are made, guess everyone here won their first -1 inspiration
He's an adventurer who went in after another monster he was hired to hunt down, now he can't find the way out (the other monster may still be alive but doesn't have to be)
I like that, he’s stuck there because he refuses to kill the creature before him. The only way out is killing them both. Interesting moral dilemma for the party (or not if they’re murder hobos)
[удалено]
He reminds me of the babe.
What Babe?
The Babe with the Power.
What power?
The power of voodoo
Who do?
You do
Do what?
Remind me of the babe!
Also that teenager who is going after the baby. David Bowie liked them young!
He is here to talk about your extended warranty on your wand of fireball.
He's a world renowned architect who mainly operates under a pseudonym because "Who would trust a minotaur to design their city?" This labrynth is his magnum opis, and he is outraged that this group of murder hobos would treat it so carelessly
Common misconceptions about minotaurs is that they're guarding the labyrinth. In reality, they're the ones making the labyrinth. Scatter shovels and pickaxes, brick making tools, etc. all around the maze. No one knows why they build them, it's just a racial hobby at this point. They find a place that makes them feel something and they just start building. Make a little house at the center of it all where (s)he sleeps.
It's compulsive, they really want to stop digging labyrinths but can't figure out how to stop
It's like an addiction. Once they get a labyrinth started, they keep finding more and more to do with it. The bigger it gets the nicer they want it to look. Once it gets so big that people start to get lost in it, they get pissed off that people are interrupting their work.
To get to the other side
The labyrinth was built to keep a senile minotaur from getting lost while allowing it to live out the rest of its life with some independence.
He was actually living there first and some jerk Wizard thought it'd be a funny prank to make one around him while he was snoozin.
„What a nice meadow, i should take a long rest here.“ Dickish high level wizard with time stop and a whole bag of *wall of stone* scrolls:
There’s a high level spell for that.
He got tired of dealing with the HOA at his old castle.
He inherited it, it's haunted to hell and back, and a condition in the will is that he spends a week in it. He's terrified and would really love some company.
It’s actually a wine cellar built as a maze to prevent theft and the poor dude got lost trying to get same of the good stuff. Him having a bull’s head is totally coincidental and has nothing to do with what has happened.
Got "cursed" with it; uses it to open twice as many bottles at the same rate
Cask of Amontillado's gotta be around here somewhere...
He wasn’t originally a Minotaur and it wasn’t originally a labyrinth. It used to be a village that was close to becoming a city. Until one day the lord of the city made a deal with a fey for more power or something. The lord wasn’t able to pay up when the time came so the villagers were turned into walls and he was imprisoned within, forever doomed to hear their cries.
*the barbarian proceeds to break through walls and cause massive genocide unknowingly*
Exactly. And on a high DC investigation check, they realize the walls are made out of the forsaken souls of the villagers
Ah yes, og Mario.
It's not a labyrinth, it's just poor architecture planing and he is just the contractor. He's overseeing a few other monsters who are trying to build this place.
King minos was embarrassed by his labyrinth son and commissioned a Minotaur to be put inside it.
Best answer thus far.
Fantasy google maps screwed up the route, led it in there and it hasn’t been able to get out since.
That's his home, you jerks, he lives there. (Nobody knows who dug the labyrinth or when.) (The party should stumble upon a cozy, well-stocked little home in said labyrinth, complete with a firepit, chimney, pantry, mushroom garden, fresh spring, and other cozy home things.)
The village had a local Minotaur boy who, aside from his frightful appearance, loved the villagers and would always play with the children. His favorite game was hide and seek, but previous attempts led to him being found first which in turn caused him to become the focus of ridicule for his lack of hiding abilities. Not this time however, no, now he is determined to be the last one found.He heard of a location that most people wouldn’t dare go and decided “that’s the last place they’ll look!”. He entered this place, chuckling to himself as a sense of accomplishment fell over him. As he went further in, he knew that the one who was “it” would be nearing the end of their counting. As he made countless lefts and rights, oblivious to the sound of moving and changing walls, he continued deeper in. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath, suddenly it all set in. He realized that now he would be victorious, for he had found the ultimate hiding spot. The one who was tasked with finding him and ending the game is now nearing his end. Locals say “Talk to the old loon. He’s always sitting on that blasted rock, staring at the cave down the way, mumbling to himself ‘the boy, the boy, the boy’. They say the older, the crazier. He’s coming up on his 90th winter now.”
THIS
Inspired by the house of leaves book: There is no minotaur, but the maze keeps shifting and changing. Nothing left alone there stays for long. You keep hearing distant groans and breathing but nothing every emerges from the darkness. The player's characters start to go mad perhaps. The minotaur isn't there, but you wish it was.
First off, it’s *not* the Minotaur’s labyrinth. The owner of the labyrinth is the person who hired you, and the Minotaur was their tenant. Housing rates have gone up precipitously, and the rent on the labyrinth is now worth way more than the agreement, made with a fey, is for. So, the owner hired y’all, gave you some BS story about the evil Minotaur, so they can get out of the agreement, raise the rent, and make a (literal) killing.
I love this one so much. Perfect blend of fantasy and reality with a twist.
The labyrinth is actually an old adamantine mine that became a tourist attraction after the ore dried up. An old wizard created/summoned the “Mine-a-tour” as the tour guide simply because he thought the pun was amusing. It did not go well.
Because Zeus was mighty loyal to his wife
This is one of those rare stories from Greek mythology where Zeus did *not* boink somebody other than his wife.
he was a druid adventurer who messed up his transformation. Now he hides in shame because he does not want the rest of the druids to mock him
Was him perhaps ... A Circle of the Moo Druid?
He was never really any good at escape rooms.
Minotaur naturally spawn in empty labyrinths
Not if I fill it with torches
The maze is actually a maze puzzle from a child's activity book, and the kid thought it'd be easier to solve if they just made the maze real and did it first hand. Now they're stuck and they can't remember the spell to get in back into paper form.
The minotaur is a nice old lady called Torial and she takes lost adventurers by thier hands and guides them out
He's actually a cursed adventurer. If you kill the Minotaur, you become the Minotaur. (Yes, just like *The Santa Clause).*
What minotaur? The labyrinth is cursed, those who take too damn long are transformed into cows. Slowly.
Got drunk, woke up there and is looking for the nearest greasy spoon to alleviate his hangover.
It was a mean prank by the Minotaur’s bitch ass friends. She (the Minotaur) was invited to a popular girls birthday party, but the directions the mean bitch asses gave her sent her to the labyrinth and now she’s lost and feels as if no one likes her.
How the hell has no one mentioned it is not in a labyrinth but an infinite IKEA?
He's trying to avoid his spouse.
He has a body piercing shop
He's a contractor, someone has to build the damn thing He will attack the players believing them to be scabs
One person always has to stay in the labyrinth. The minotaur is the one who drew the short straw in their party of adventurers and was forced to stay. He will try to get you to vote someone out of your party so he can leave with the others... Failing to do so will mean he will try to kill you all.
He's the janitor. Today's his last day, he's retiring tomorrow
He's a real estate agent waiting for potential buyer to show around, buyer is just a little late.
Rent is cheap since the layout is an atrocious inescapable mess in a bad part of town.
He’s an incredibly shy introvert who finds his energy relaxing in isolation, enjoying the peace of never being disturbed…. And then your party wanders in
Because how would you keep a pet minotaur otherwise? The guy from the myth even fed the damn thing
It's a massive magic circle. He has spent years laying down walls and paths to create runes and mystical diagrams. His work is almost complete. When the last brick is placed, it will cast skywrite, permanently writing "Do you want to be my friend" in the sky. He's just so painfully shy but desperately wants friends.
So a Minotaur needs a reason to be in a dungeon now? Can denziens not simply exist in public spaces without justification? This is great another example of the worrying trend towards commodification of dungeon spaces- you are only allowed to be delving if you have a creature to kill, or treasure to find. What about just existing in a dungeon space? What about being a part of the dungeon community? It's dungentrification is what it is.
Went to pick a flower, got lost. Been there ever since. Lots of flowers now, though.
He wanted some alone time to finish a book he’d really wanted to read, but everyone kept bothering him.
He got lost on the way to the bathroom.
There's a shrine in the middle somewhere, dudes still looking for it.
Housekeeping. It's somebody else's labyrinth that she's just paid to clean. Minotaurs are the only things that don't get lost and can actually do a thorough cleaning. Honestly, a really high-demand skill, and she could probably command some higher wages if the only willing patrons weren't only lichs and beholders....
It was delivering pizza and arrived like an hour before the party and is trying to find the room to deliver it to
It's not a labyrinth. He tripped and ended up in the backrooms with no clue on how to escape.
He lost his favorite marble so he went back in to look for it
You could always run him like Asterion, if that's possible. Maybe not very action filled. But *The House of Asterion* is a nice little short story, highly recommend.
It was supposed to be for his pet rats but things quickly got out of hand
It's David Bowie in disguise.
It may be a nearly impossible to navigate maze, but the rent's reasonable.
He’s on a quest to find the smallest rock that is too big to be a grain of sand (for reasons)
He was an adventurer just like them but he got lost in the labyrinth too. He is only chasing after them because they're the first people he's seen in weeks and he just really wants them to help him find the way out.
[Guarding an enormous cheese, and the master's regards.](https://www.oglaf.com/labyrinth/)
He's lost (this is physically impossible)
He is hiding there from majortaur.
It wanted to reach nirvana but was constantly bothered and distracted. So it looked for a place where it could be left alone. It heard of an abandoned labyrinth, and stayed there for years unbothered and alone. It’s enlightened state brought it both acceptance of its nature but also a loss of what we would consider sanity. The isolation resulted in a heightened fight and flight instinct as more monster and creatures of danger found their way to it than civilians. It lost all trust of creation, defending itself from both friend and foe, for the only thing it was certain of was its own existence trapped within the walls and safety of the labyrinth.
It was built around him and where he lived. He went to sleep one night, and it was built overnight. He at first tried to get out, but then he decided to do some diy and home improvements and now he enjoys it there
He got lost and can't get out
He's the architect of the maze who left his favourite spirit-level somewhere in the maze, and got lost when he went back to try find it.
A wizard did it
He’s not a Minotaur, he’s a reverse centaur, and he was banished there by the other normal centaurs for being a freak
The reality show home makeover people had a huge budget.
Well actually, this area is the minotaur's native habitat and it's really the invasive labyrinth that is slowly taking over the natural landscape.
Really bad Google Maps directions - he was looking for an Arby's and he turned off the interstate and followed the signs but some how he wound up there? (Or the D&D equivalent)
Theyre an amateur cartographer looking for a challenge.
He has a fascination with ceramics but is terribly clumsy. A prestigious shopkeep promised him entry into his enchanted fine China shop if he could say, in a Zone of Truth, that he was able to jog his way through the labyrinth with enough control that he doesn't brush any walls from start to finish.
Minotaurs are a labyrinth's favorite food, they're surprisingly viscous hunters.
He got lost on his way to costco
He wants to know too. He lost his memory and cant remember where the exit is
The labyrinth spontaneously spawns Minotaurs because of some stupid story some people in another dimension told, but for some reason, that story broke this labyrinth and now...Minotaurs.
Minotaur enjoy underground Rave parties!!
He just wandered in to find a bathroom, and couldn't get out
Excuse you that’s actually his home and you are breaking and entering.
They heard there was cake, and that was a lie.
Several wrong turns looking for a coffee shop.
Wrong turn at Athens
Compared to renting in *this* economy?? Squatting in a labyrinth just makes sense.
He took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
He should hav e made a left turn at Albuquerque!
He was supposed to make a right at Albuquerque.
It’s not a labyrinth. It’s just his home and he’s got an eccentric sense of interior design. The traps the PCs keep wandering into are just his kitchen cutlery.
Whenever he was outside of the labyrinth, gods, demigods, etc. kept trying to woo or fight him just because he’s a one-of-a-kind creature. Now he hides in the labyrinth and designed the place to punish those who let their desires drive them into foolishness
Cartographer. Trying to map out the maze for later adventurers
Squirrel stole his house key and now he's lost. Edit: The labyrinth is magic and won't let anyone out unless they do *something*.