Appearance

Harpies as a whole stand at a height between four and seven feet tall. Their skin come in all manner of shades, from earthen tones to peach and everything between. Their hair comes in all colors and textures as well, and often matches their plumage. The birds they can take after vary, and this can impact where they live. They have a woman’s torso, long bird-like legs, and beautiful tail feathers. The number of limbs they have if the primary difference between the two species.

Hesoid Harpies

Hesoid harpies are characterized by their large wings, which function as their arms. With rudimentary raptor-like hands, they prefer to interact with objects using their clawed, dextrous feet. They tend to keep to their own kind or similar species, since using their feet tends to draw stares from humanoid races.

Dantan Harpies

Dantan harpies have six limbs: two arms, two wings, and two legs. Their wings are much like angel wings, attached at the shoulder and very large. Their arms are human-like from the shoulder to the elbow, there they become scaled with talon-like fingers on their hands. They’re much more dextrous with their hands, and as such they can intermingle with other races with more ease than their Hesoid counterparts.

Abilities

Harpies are incredible fliers. They’re graceful and agile in the sky, and the shape of their wings determine much of what they can do in the sky. Hummingbird based harpies can hover, albatross harpies can soar for long distances--the type of wings they have even determine where they live.

Their talons are very powerful and can deliver crushing blows, especially when coupled with a divebomb from lofty heights.

Dantan harpies can use tools in combat, like bows and axes, while Hesoid harpies are more prone to kicking and brawling with their talons.

Magical Abilities

Harpies are masters of air magic. While they can really only use the most rudimentary forms of it, such as creating breezes or small whirlwinds, they have an innate ability to detect the flow of air around them. This innate affinity with the sky even allows them to detect changes in weather days before a storm hits. Sailors are especially keen on having a harpy on board for this exact reason: their weather sense is never wrong.

Culture

Harpies prefer to live in small colonies in forests, plains, and along cliffs (both inland and on the sea). They’re social by nature, often preening each other and spending hours talking. Even harpies outside of harpy colonies are social, and tend to be drawn to professions that put them around others, such as tavern owners or performers.

While usually peaceful, harpies will come together to defend themselves in great numbers. They break into squads, which each squad run by a commander, and deliver well organized aerial assaults.

Harpies must always mate outside of their species, as there are no male harpies. The male child will always be the same species as the father, while a female child will always be a harpy. There are rare cases of chimera offspring being born. Since harpies age so slowly, harpies are very dedicated mothers. They dote over their nests, and many mothers work together to eggsit while the others go and hunt. Once hatched, harpies are very much firm practitioners of “it takes a village to raise a child”.

Harpies begin life as ugly little things, having no feathers and soft scales. Within a few days they’ll have soft, downy feathers to keep them warm. The fledging process is lengthy for them, and it takes many years for them to grow out of their downy feathers and into their adult plumage in what many other species would call their awkward teenage years. Once their adult feathers have grown in, it’s time to learn to fly.

Flight is taught in large groups, and usually involves the young harpies training their flight muscles by running along the ground and flapping their wings. When it comes to taking their first flight, it’s a literal leap of faith. Harpy children climb the tallest object around and throw themselves off, either flying to their cheering families or falling to their deaths.

History

It is said that the first harpy sprang to life during a fit of Zarkos’ rage. The god, so enraged by the follies of his progeny, created a massive storm that raged for months on end. It’s within this storm that the first harpy came to be. Born of wailing winds around the eye of the storm, she came into being with cloud-like hair and plumage a deep stormy grey. She is said to have calmed the storm with a flap of her mighty wings, and proclaimed herself to be the newest child of Zarkos.