Harpies

''Currently, races are not yet implemented in game. What you see below is a representation of our future intentions, and is aspirational''

Harpies are one of races in SotE.

Harpies are one of the few intelligent races who enjoy the tremendous gift of flight.

Description

A bird-like race, Harpies skew slightly K-selected and will lay a single egg every few years depending on resource constraints. This K-selection involves intelligence comparable to humans and a body mass 3/4ths that of a human. However, due to the cube square law, flight with a large body is a significant challenge and this is reflected in the anatomical sacrifices that Harpies have made. They are generally quite frail with light bones and a high surface area to body mass ratio (largely due to their wingspan), making them quite vulnerable in close quarters conflict with other races their size.

For this reason, Harpies tend to avoid settling anywhere out in the open or on flat terrain. While they are theoretically “specialists” as opposed to generalists, they are not particularly specialized toward any specific climate. Instead, they tend to colonize and thrive anywhere in which their nests or settlements can be maximally defended with their special advantage of flight (mountaintops, old growth forests with large trees, etc.) or locales which are geographically isolated from potential enemies (remote islands, isolated mountain valleys, river confluences, etc). Their general omnivory is helpful in this regard, as they can eat virtually anything that a human might, thus survive plausibly in almost any climate or environment. They can even coat their wings and feathers in light oils and thrive as kite like fisherfolk on coasts or island chains.

One of the Harpy’s other great advantages is that their preferred homes are of little strategic or economic value to most other races. The rugosity of these preferred homes are also simultaneously difficult to invade. Harpies almost never engage in conventional warfare or set piece battles, and instead prefer to drop objects like rocks on their enemies, strafe them from behind with sharp metal shards attached to their claws, or drop flaming objects into enemy camps and supply trains at night. Such tactics work especially well in rough terrain, and when coupled with the poor economic value of their preferred homes, few enemies will find a practical reason to attack Harpy settlements (beyond ending Harpy banditry), and even then it might be more practical to tolerate minor amounts of banditry over a ruinous invasion of a mountain peak. The net effect of these factors usually means that a Harpy society is usually small, develops slowly, but enjoys a large degree of autonomy and safety.

Harpies are comfortable living a feral life, but are specially disposed toward creating low grade, civilized enclaves in otherwise vast tracts of feral land. The need to raise their young in nests not only disposes them toward monogamous pairings, but it also serves as an incentive to lay down roots in a given place rather than migrate frequently. Like most birds, both Harpy parents in a pairing assist in raising the young, which has resulted in very little sexual dimorphism between male and female. With similar body shapes and no mammary glands, outsiders frequently have a difficult time telling male and female apart, though males and females sometimes decoratively dye their feathers different colors based on sex. All of the above factors have skewed Harpy societies toward gender equality far more than any other race. Female harpy leaders are just as common as male, and its common for wedded Harpy pairs to rule jointly.

Harpies tend not to wear clothes due to the weight and flight drag (which can exclude them from settling extremely cold climates), but as mentioned up above, more advanced harpy societies are known to richly dye their feathers. Not only is this a means by which members of a harpy societies differentiate themselves from members of other harpy societies, its also a means by which harpies differentiate class within a society. Higher status harpies tend to dye their feathers in more expensive colors or “imperial” purple.

While Harpies don’t easily fit on the spectrum of specialist vs generalist, they also don’t fit cleanly on feral vs civilized. Despite their disposition toward settled societies, Harpies are poorly adapted for complex agricultural life for many reasons. The first is a mediocre ability to defend a conventional farming community on flat, fertile land. Their slight build makes them poor at constructing heavy fortifications like walls and poor at standing their ground during surprise attacks on land with few natural defenses. The second reason is anatomical incompatibility with conventional agriculture and construction of tools. Harpies have 3 bendable claws on each wing similar to Archaeopteryx, but these appendages have terrible manual dexterity and can lift very little weight. For this reason, Harpies are among the worst races of SotE when it comes to both craftsmanship as well as creating traditional agricultural infrastructure. When Harpies do create complex agricultural communities, it is a painstakingly slow process of sustainable, lower yield agroforestry, creating such things as hanging gardens, terraced fields with imported soil, and orchards. The one great advantage Harpies have is that these hanging gardens, terraced fields, and orchards are almost impossible to attack, destroy, or raid by other races.

Because of their gift of flight, a tendency to settle in difficult-to-access places, and poor aptitude for producing finished goods, Harpies have a very large incentive to conduct both organized and disorganized banditry toward other civilized peoples, as there is little risk of retaliation. Harpies with a long tradition of banditry often evolve toward city state style societies of bandit kings who parasitize other civilized races by extorting tolls from any commerce passing through areas within a day’s flight from their settlements and outposts. In time, if their victims gain parity with the development of strong bow technology and skill, this relationship may evolve toward mutualism. Rather than steal what they need, Harpies can trade their services as unique mercenaries, courier corps, and scouts for finished goods which they themselves cannot make efficiently.

Statistics Note that Humans are a baseline of 100 on most statistics Primary statistics

Nutrition needs

Body attributes

Composite statistics