It’s Midgard Monday! Each week, we visit a corner of the wide world of Midgard. Look for standalone content you can drop into your campaign—whether it’s in Midgard or your own homebrew. Find new inspiration each Midgard Monday!

The Kobold Press Tome of Heroes is full of player options for any 5E D&D game. Several subraces in the book have sidebars describing their place in Midgard. However, some do not!

One subrace missing a Midgard description is the boghaid. These minotaurs live in the highlands and grow thick, curly hair to stave off the cold temperatures of their homes.

They’ve never appeared in any Midgard product . . . but where could you find boghaid minotaurs if you wanted them in your Midgard game?

Boghaid Minotuars in Midgard

Far removed from their seafaring cousins, the boghaid prefer solid ground beneath their feet, preferably rocky and high in the crisp, clean air.

Where standard minotaurs are the terror of the seas, the boghaid produce some of the most fearsome warriors on land. Their size, strength, and menacing appearance are an asset on the battlefield.

A company of boghaid irregulars and scouts can be invaluable when fighting in mountainous territory. Thus, it is not unusual to see boghaid warriors working as mercenaries in faraway lands. In Midgard, they keep their fighting spirit by engaging the enemies that abound in the lands they claim.

Boghaid of the Cloudwall Mountains

A number of boghaid clans are tucked in secluded valleys high in the mountains of the Cloudwall range.

Life in the Cloudwalls is dangerous and uncertain. Leopards prowl the trails, and two-headed rocs hunt high above. Ogres and yeti vie for food and territory. Worst of all, the vampires of Morgau claim the mountains and its inhabitants as their hunting grounds.

However, the boghaid are a stubborn folk. They have lived in these mountains since before the Blood Kingdom was founded, and have every expectation of outlasting the undead, and singing the epic of how they did so to the generations that come after them.

Facts about the Boghaid of the Cloudwalls

• Clan steading design has changed since the coming of the vampires. Sharpened wooden stakes are planted in the ground around the perimeter of a village. These anti-cavalry fortifications protect against Morgau’s ghost knights, as well as providing sharpened stakes for vampires when the need arises. Clan holds are also typically built with a stream running through them, or a stream is sometimes diverted to run around the perimeter of the village as an added defense. Finally, village guests are not permitted into individual homes, but are instead invited to stay in the clan’s longhouse, the central meeting and feasting hall. This way, vampires cannot penetrate boghaid homes.

• When Baba Yaga’s hut is seen wandering the valleys below the mountains, volunteers from each tribe trek down to the lower reaches with offerings of crops, fresh meat, and other goods. The best singer in the group calls out to the hut in a sing-song voice when the hut is sighted, saying “Grandmother, Grandmother, harken to my call. We are the true children of Cloudwall. We bring you gifts; we beg mercy. Harken to our plea; make the fanged ones flee.” They leave their offerings and retreat before the hut gets too close. Thus far, Baba Yaga has not responded, but the offerings are always gone after the hut leaves the area.

Boghaid of the Ironcrags

Normally, talk of the Ironcrags involves dwarves. However, boghaid settlements are scattered through the high valleys of the region, most concentrated south of Tijino. The canton dwarves typically referred to them as “the boghaid problem,” as their coexistence was turbulent at the best of times.

The dwarven cantons that attempted to subjugate the boghaid found themselves in conflict against fast-moving, guerilla fighters who were content to wander the peaks evading dwarven patrols and raiding caravans and farms at their leisure. Those who made peace lost fewer soldiers, but were still beset by boghaid raiding parties, though with much less frequency than the cantons still in conflict.

The canton of Tijino finally hit upon the best way to deal with their brash, horned neighbors; they armed them and pointed them at someone else. Marshalling Master Vordrashi declared the boghaid within canton borders eligible to form a Free Company and earn mercenary plunder, so long as they violated no dwarven law.

When the boghaid agreed, Vordrashi aided them in forming and arming a company to send south to the Seven Cities. This practice was quickly made law throughout the cantons at the next Dwarfmoot. The remaining boghaid agreed, eager to prove themselves in combat and earn plunder without having to fight so close to home.

Facts about the Boghaid of the Ironcrags

• Boghaid Free Companies are much sought after in the Seven Cities. Their wild, shaggy look is considered fearsome. (Though their traditional, seafaring cousins find them embarrassingly uncivilized.) The most famous of the boghaid Free Companies is the Goldhorns, a name that comes from the practice of plating a new recruits horns with gold after their first successful combat with the company.

• The canton of Kubourg has integrated the local boghaid better than any of their neighbors. The boghaid aid in raising and protecting livestock in exchange for a portion of the profits. The boghaid are especially fond of being armed with black powder weapons. Raiders balk at the thought of rustling cattle guarded by boghaid armed with muskets and greataxes.

• The favorite holiday of boghaid in the Ironcrags is Lionn Saor. The dwarves give the boghaid a three-day holiday when the year’s first batches of beer are tapped. It is a time of free beer, festivities, and the airing (and resolving) of grievances. The typical boghaid way to resolve grievances is a fist fight, followed by the feuding parties dulling the pain with shared drinks, win or lose, to celebrate their new understanding.

---

Get into Midgard with the Midgard Worldbook! This acclaimed campaign setting is rich and deep, with a decade of support from Kobold Press. Want a more focused start? Try the Zobeck Clockwork City Collector’s Edition! This detailed sourcebook gives players plenty of room to run, and includes adventures within the Clockwork City itself!

---