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I'm playing a game of 5e, and our dragonborn lost all of his rations from a magical key. He was given rations by our minotaur. What do those rations consist of? Would the dragonborn face any issues with eating these rations? I'm asking because this dragonborn is primarily a carnivore, and it seems to me that minotaurs might be herbivores, being bovine in appearance...
What do minotaurs eat, and would their rations be consumable by another race, specifically dragonborn?
As far as I'm aware, there are no official rules regarding the diet of either of these two creatures. As such, it would depend on the DM, as usual. However:
If you insist on using real world logic, keep in mind that while the head of the minotaur is indeed bovine (Thus its teeth are best suited for chewing plants, mostly grass) most of its lower body is still humanoid. This would include most of its digestive tract, meaning that its stomach can easily digest different types of meat. In fact, the original minotaur in Greek mythology was exclusively a carnivore, as it feasted upon the human sacrifices that were sent into its maze. Thus, an omnivoric minotaur is not out of the question- If you insist on realism, it would only have a bit of trouble ripping the meat with its teeth. But that's what cutlery is for these days.
I'm going to completely ignore the dnd-5e tag, because this is a fluff question, not a crunch one. The diet of the minotaur won't affect a bit of his game statistics.
While the question is about the Dragonlance brand of minotaur, let's indulge. The original analysis of the Greek minotaur monster is below.
The Krynn minotaurs are a different kind of minotaur than the original:
Most of Krynn’s minotaurs are informally known as Blood Sea minotaurs, named for the treacherous ocean area in which they are commonly encountered.
The habitat of those minotaurs is the sea, so their diet will favor sea-food. Onwards to their ecology:
Minotaurs produce a variety of products, among the them smoked and canned fish, (...) Minotaurs eat a variety of food but they have a special taste for fish, mutton, and raw rains. They also enjoy strong ales and beers.
The shared rations is probably smoked fish, since it can stay edible for longer. Canned fish would stay unspoiled for longer, and probably held as emergency rations (we called those Iron rations back in the old days).
For the "common minotaur monster", let us dig back into the AD&D 2e monster manual, and see the minotaur Ecology entry (page 252):
Ecology
Minotaurs breed with human females to produce offspring, which are male minotaurs.
(...) They can live without food for years at a time, but are always hungry unless they are fed regularly. They are meat-eaters, but their curse causes them to prefer a diet of human flesh. (...)
I'll skip past the "live without food" part, because characters should starve. But since minotaurs are human offspring, they can be considered omnivorous like humans, with a strong preference for flesh.
Of course civilized minotaurs won't eat human flesh... very often or in public
Unless the minotaur bought "minotaur rations" because there was a sale on oats, rations are rations for PCs. The dragonborn would also be able to consume rations bought by the elves and gnomes. I would think the only difference between races would be for taste, but for the game mechanic, it's the same. Unless you are also house ruling that some races need to purchase special foods, it's the same item on the price sheets.
Rations (1 day); 5 sp; 2 lb. (Basic Rules, p. 50)
I know this is the same conclusion as some other answers, but they've based their answers on realism or biology. This answer uses the game mechanics as it's basis (at least that's what I tried to do).
While the mythical and monstrous minotaurs are human-eating carnivores, the 5e playable minotaur race is taken from the Krynn (Dragonlance) minotaurs, which don't have their diet mentioned in their 5e source material from Unearthed Arcana but are defined as "Diet: Omnivore" in their AD&D 2e Monstrous Compendium entry (MC4 - Dragonlance Appendix). It goes on to note:
Minotaurs eat a variety of food but they have a special taste for fish, mutton, and raw rains. They also enjoy strong ales and beers.
Seems to me like their taste in rations would be pretty compatible with that of a dragonborn.
No, I don't know what a "raw rain" is. Grain? Maybe an OCR issue, my books are in boxes right now but I'll check when they're back out.
