Harpy

The Harpy (ハーピー族) is a mono-gendered (female) demi-human liminal race with the body of a human and the wings and talons of a bird. They colonize mountainsides and similar places.

A pure and cheerful race that loves the blue sky and singing. Unfortunately, most of the time, they only sing for other harpies.

Culture
Harpies are migratory beings and a race that embodies the notion of freedom, going where they please, when they please. Being similar in nature to migratory birds, Harpies psychologically can’t stay in one place for very long. However, due to their air-headed personalities they more often then not forget about their "rules" and just do what they please, with that rule being: "Harpies are not allowed to stay a long time in a place. ESPECIALLY at a guy's place."

Harpies have an opposable digit on the joint of each wing, and the wing at the joint can curl to some small degree. This allows for gripping of objects, but these improvised grabbers are nowhere near as dexterous as true hands. Because of this, it is likely harpies do not craft, and their clothing and tools would have to be received elsewhere. As such, it is likely that harpy villages have a number of poultry harpies to produce eggs for trading. Common harpies will lay unfertilized eggs only perhaps once every few months, so their production alone could not fill such a role.

Harpies are mono-gendered and rely on humans to reproduce. Unlike most such races, though, harpies do not simply abduct men for the purpose. Rather, they travel about and find men before returning to the village after mating, sometimes even finding multiple partners in a single outing to encourage genetic diversity. Despite this, some harpies will occasionally choose a mate for life, and will either move to be with them or else continually return when their migration routes bring them back around.

When human representatives arrived with the intention of including their race in the exchange program conducted through the Cultural Exchange Between Species Bill, a majority of the harpies did not intend on applying due to the various laws they would be expected to follow. However, some applied on a whim, being true to their nature.

Physiological Attributes

 * Harpies are among the lightest of the demi-human races because of their hollow bones.
 * Some harpies lay 2-3 eggs each week.
 * Even when in adulthood, harpies have childlike bodies (averaging 140 cm aka 4'6" in height). These bodies are ideally suited to flying through the air to prevent wind drag.
 * Since they don't have hands, one might think daily life would be rather inconvenient; however, their talons and the claws on their wings are sufficient for most tasks.
 * Harpies have poor night vision and thusly, rarely fly at night.
 * Harpies can be omnivores or carnivores.

Land Animal Harpy
Land Animal Harpies (陸上種) are a subspecies of harpy adapted for terrestrial life, like ostriches and emus. Their wings are small, but their bodies have evolved to be larger than humans. Using their thick, powerful legs, they can run at incredibly high speeds. Despite their large bodies and sharp claws, they are generally easygoing.

These harpies still have slight frames but are nearly twice the size of other harpies, making them quite tall. Their wings would be a little more dexterous than a common harpy's, as they do not have large pinions to obstruct movement. Land animal harpies are generally of a duller plumage than the colorful common harpies or patterned raptor harpies, but would also be more memorable and not as keen to forgetting things, as land travel requires greater use of landmarks than air travel. The same issue of crafting would affect them as any other harpy, and they likely have poultry harpies in their villages for the production of trade material.

Though still migratory to an extent, there would be far less distance covered by land harpies than other sorts when moving. Despite their flightless status, land harpy wings are far from weak, and would be able to carry moderate loads while running by wrapping around the items or passenger poultry harpies.

Land animal harpies would exhibit the same manner of finding mates as common harpies, though due to their restriction of movement, they would likely not seek multiple partners as often.

Poultry Harpy
Poultry Harpies (家禽種) are a harpy subspecies adapted for laying eggs. They cannot fly and are unable to run at high speeds like land animal harpies. However, they produce far more eggs than other subspecies, and they continuously lay eggs nearly every day. Poultry harpies have a red crest on top of their heads. Unlike chickens, their appearance is natural, not selectively bred. They are very cowardly (chicken).

Given their gross inability to transport or defend themselves to any great degree, it is likely that poultry harpies simply live with populations of other harpy species. Common, land animal, and raptor harpies are too different in lifestyle from one another to comfortably form unified villages, and these three species would form their own villages in their own regions. However, harpies cannot make things like clothes or tools because their wings lack the dexterity, so they would have to barter for or steal such things. Harpies are too laid back to actively steal from other races, so it is likely that they trade for them. This is where poultry harpies would come in: they produce eggs far more frequently than the other harpy species, and these eggs would be the harpy trade specialty.

Given the poultry harpy's status, it would be in the village's best interests to have them around. So it is that villages of each type of harpy would also include a number of poultry harpies, and offer them protection and shelter. Poultry harpies are weak, slow, flightless, and chicken-hearted, so they would likely not have survived this long if not for this relationship with the other harpies.

As poultry harpies cannot go out and search for a mate on their own, they would likely be carried and escorted to a place where men might be found by their village-mates or else those village-mates would invite men into the village for the purpose of mating with the poultry harpy.

Likely just as dim as a common harpy, a poultry harpy could not possibly be naturally migratory, as it lacks any means to be such. Even should they not feel the inclination to move, though, they are the smallest of the harpy species, and would be carried by their village-mates when the group decides to move.



Raptor Harpy
Raptor Harpies (猛禽種) are large eagle- or hawk-like harpy subspecies. Their bodies are very similar to human bodies. Though other subspecies are omnivorous, raptor harpies are strictly carnivores. They are proud and difficult to please, an unusual trait among the generally amicable harpies.

Raptor harpies have patterned plumage, such as found on hawks or owls, and do not have the giddy colors of common harpies or the simple uniform tones of land animal harpies. Raptor harpy wings are more angled than common harpy wings and are more adapted to swooping and cornering. As raptor harpies are purely carnivorous, their increased protein intake leads to their bodies being fuller and far less juvenile in appearance. Raptor harpy wings have very long pinions, and these would likely make them even less dexterous than common harpies. Due to the inherent difficulty this presents to crafting, raptor harpies would keep proportionately more poultry harpies in their villages than common or land animal harpies would.

As hunters, raptor harpies are strong and proud, and are not as easily-impressed by other harpies. Being a predator takes a degree of cunning and consistent knowledge of the terrain and situation, so raptor harpies would be the most intelligent of the harpy species, though that doesn't mean they're particularly smart by human standards.

Mate-finding would be essentially the same as with common harpies, except that raptor harpies would likely be more inclined to finding only a single mate each season, to keep enough time for hunting. As they are predatory, they might be considered a touch more aggressive than other harpy species, and even though harpies would not usually go about abducting men for breeding purposes, if any of them were going to do it, it would be Raptor Harpies.



Garuda
Garuda (ガルーダ) are a large Harpy subspecies prevalent in Hindu mythology. Regarded by Hindu lore as the King of all Birds and the mount of the Supreme god Lord Vishnu, Garuda are considered the strongest of the harpy subspecies and are known for their eternal animosity with the Naga serpent race.

Members

 * Papi
 * Papi's Mother
 * Haru (Raptor)
 * Bima (Garuda)
 * Lea (Land Animal Harpy)

Trivia

 * One of The Eight Brothers is dating a Harpy girl.
 * It is currently unknown how related the Harpy race is with the Yatagarasu, a similar liminal race that have crow-themed wings and plumage.
 * Their sexual desire for other races is relatively low, except during mating season when they lure men out with their beautiful singing voices, then take them away to their nests. Their ditzy nature may have a hand in that.
 * Kimihito states that after Harpies take about 3 steps, their brains will automatically reset causing them to forget what just happened, which was shown when Kimihito carried Papi while trying to run from her mother.
 * Even though they are air-headed and often forget about things, they can still remember the men they once loved.
 * A notable mythic theme from Easter Island is the concept of "Bird Men"; human beings with wings, chosen to act as mediums between the living and spirit worlds.
 * Like most birds, harpies dislike scarecrows planted in fields and CDs hung from balconies.
 * During mating season, Harpies will mate with many different kinds of men to ensure a mix of various genes in their offspring.