Harpy Hunting (RPG/Scenario)

Adventurers: Not uncommon to sight on the roads, adventurers come from all sorts of backgrounds across Calthantis. Most are registered with guilds in certain or multiple kingdoms (there are multiple adventurers' guilds across Calthantis), but many choose to freelance. Adventurers are welcome in most of the land, but are sometimes treated with caution or wariness until they prove themselves

Harpies: Often found making their homes in mountain passes, cliffs, deep forests, and ancient ruins, Harpies are humanoid monsters who resemble beautiful women, with a mixture of avian features. Despite appearing humanoid, however, harpies find true humanoid flesh to be a delicacy, and have an intelligence lying somewhere between man and beast. In some cases, they have been known to practice dark magic and curses.

Harpy Appearance: Harpies resemble beautiful women, with feathered wings in place of arms. Their legs are covered in feathers and scales, with savage talons for feet, and they have feathers growing on their back from below the shoulder-blades until ending in tailfeathers. Their faces are humanoid - no beaks, only mouths.

Their hair is often messy, albeit fluffy and somewhat maintained, and adorned with shiny objects, metal fragments, coins, and bones.

Harpies sometimes wear simple and light clothing, like pelts or scavenged human clothes (often decorated with their own fallen feathers). As they adore all that shines, as well as trophies, they tend to decorate themselves with random objects, teeth, and bones that they tie to themselves with string made from sinew.

Harpy Behavior: Harpies are rather animalistic creatures, preying on travelers, adventurers and the lost. While harpies make no particular distinction between most races, they bear an unusually strong taste for human flesh, and will relentlessly hunt them long past their normal territory should they catch sight or scent of a live human.

Though not the most intelligent, Harpies are very clever creatures, who are quick to pick up on intentions, and also swift at taking stock of a situation. They know the difference between a certain victory, and a certain defeat - when faced with a threat they are certain they cannot defeat, they will attempt to flee or hide.

Harpies have an obsession with all that shines, and adore trophies taken from prey or travel. As such, they adorn themselves and their nests with such items, and often have small hoards of potentially worthless, albeit pretty, items - some of which may be magical in nature. Indeed, some harpies can even be persuaded to leave would-be prey alone in exchange for a small collection of shiny goods, or a few particularly captivating treasures. It is not unheard of for some harpies to promise (admittedly tenuous) fealty to those who give them a particularly enticing offer, especially when it leads to more treasure, or protection, for so long as the deal stands.

Some harpies - for one reason or another - do not act like their kin. If raised under the right circumstances, or if their natural inclination allows it, a harpy can in fact be rather friendly. However, this is incredibly rare, and usually the result of outside intervention, or a skilled "tamer" though one may question the word taming when applied to a creature so humanoid.

Harpies speak in broken English, and often mix bird-like vocalizations into their speech.

Harpy Relationships: Harpies are often found in groups, referred to as blood broods (or more simply, broods), which usually consist of a few harpies and their close offspring. These groups are often smaller in size, usually up to a dozen at most. Given the right circumstances, a blood brood can grow to threatening numbers - but this is a rare occurrence. Harpies in a Blood Brood are as close to eachother as siblings (many of whom quite literally are), and despite fighting over trivial things such as treasures and prime meat, they will fight to the death to protect their brood, even making deals with dark powers if backed into a corner.

Blood broods are usually territorial, and will react with hostility when other blood broods encroach on their territories and roosts.

Harpies bear a particular distrust of elves and beastmen, referring to both as "tainted meat". In fact, they will usually leave the corpses of both to rot, should one or the other to be prey.

Harpy Abilities: Harpies are dexterous, and surprisingly strong for their slim frames. Their speed when flying, in combination with their savage claws, can make swift work of an unprepared adventurer, but these are not their only tools.

1: Captivating Songs Harpies can sing a captivating song that entrances and lures humanoids straight into the clutches and traps of the singing harpy. As this song is magical in nature, they can choose to exclude a listener to the effects of the song, whereas other harpies are simply immune to the song innately. Being engaged in combat with a harpy does not necessarily make one immune to its effects - though able to resist it far more easily, the magical nature of the song can lure even a listener that is poised to deliver a final blow.

2: Powerful Voices The voices of harpies are strong - They are capable of releasing screeches so loud that it can deafen any creature close enough to it.

3: Dark Magic Whether through dark deals or rituals, some unique harpies wield dark magic that can befuddle the mind, trick the eyes, or wither the body. The harpies who have access to these spells are referred to as Vilewings, and are as rare as they are lethal to the unprepared. Some Vilewings have animated the dead or even summoned lesser fiends/demons to defend their lairs and broods.

Harpy Reproduction: Though it is popularly believed that harpies "take" mates in the form of unsuspecting wanderers/victims, this is a severe misconception. In reality, harpies usually reproduce with each other, laying eggs once fertilized. In the rather rare event that a harpy does reproduce with another race/species, however, the child of the egg will usually be born as a harpy themselves.

As it is believed (and seems) that all harpies are female, scholars argue over whether there are actually males among them, or if they are hermaphrodites.