from what i heard the new game is a h-game spin on darkest dungeon+ raising your own heroines and make them grow up threw their lifestages to use them in combat.
also, to get a minotaur or salamander, in basegame and the modded version, get fairy npc and the dragongirl npc who unlock dismantling of slaves+monsters and make item crafting + monster synthesis available. just dismantle a few monsters to get "origin dna" and open the item by-product tab, drag and drop the origin dna into the cloning tub next to the dragongirl npc...
usually most stuff explains itself if people just play and experiment enough, the origin dna stuff is somewhat shrouded, but people were talking about it in the first few pages if i remember correctly...
e: also using the search function "minotaur" or "salamander" in this threads throws people usually on a pretty good trail to get the information they seek...