Base: Tengu
The crow-like harps occupy an interesting niche in the greater regional community surrounding the Weeping Reaches as messengers, gatherers of information, and historians. Though disinclined to join into a fight in which they have no personal stakes, most harps will still observe conflict from afar so as to later compare findings with their kin in the area. Truth, whether being upheld as an absolute certainty or manipulated and used as a tool to further one’s aims, is revered as a general tenet in local harp culture. When startled, or when put on the defensive, many harps can be brash, impulsive, and duplicitous, in the effort of securing an escape route. Angry or otherwise enraged harps can sometimes be calmed with a combination of flattery and a gift of their favorite type of bauble.
As with many of their brethren across the realms, harps can exhibit a high degree of greed. Even among relatively aesthetic harp, a habit of coveting a specific type of small, shiny bauble is commonplace. Petty thievery is rarely practiced as a means of acquiring these desired objects, but many harps will go out of their way to get something they want, if they deem the object worthy of a place in their personal collection. For harps with tastes not easily satiated, coin can easily act as a bauble analog until suitable shinies are found. Though most would deny it if questioned outright, many harp are secretly superstitious about any number of random country beliefs, either gained through experience or passed down from generation to generation. These superstitions manifest in usually-benign ways such as: Never preen your feathers during the new moon, or: Don’t eat two kinds of fish at the same meal.
Harps have adapted to living in and around the massive trees of the old growth forests in their home region, allowing them to use their talons for climbing and their vestigial wing feathers for gliding between trees. With training, an adult harp can produce a call that can be heard by other harps miles upon miles away. Especially strong-throated harps may be invited to join the Far Call, a council of harp Skalds which trains it’s acolytes to act as support tacticians in battle and first responders in an emergency.
Harps instinctively strive to maintain a balance with their natural surroundings. Most harps dislike city life, preferring to live in smaller settlements with greater exposure to nature. Spiritually-inclined harp typically follow the path of the Druids of the Feather, which keeps general tabs on the state of the natural world and any potential threats to it.
Sometimes, a harp child is born under a rare astrological sign, or with a strange marking in their plumage. Those children usually manifest magical powers around their coming of age. As adults fully trained and capable in their abilities, such harps are thought of as boons to their community in the way of a good luck charm. Most children exhibiting such potential are thusly sent into training with the [NAME], a branch of harp Oracles, with the expectation that they will return to their hometown with their refined powers to the benefit of the community.
Harps are avian humanoids whose features strongly resemble crows. They have broad beaks and both their arms and their legs end in powerful talons. Though harps are unable to fly, they are capable of limited gliding, given enough height to do so. Iridescent feathers cover their bodies—this plumage is usually black, though occasionally brown or blue-back. Their skin, talons, beaks, and eyes are similarly colored, and most non-harps have great difficulty telling individuals apart. Harps who wish to be more easily identified by other humanoids may bleach certain feathers or decorate their beaks with dyes, paint, or tiny glued ornaments. Though they are about the same height as humans, they have slight builds and tend to hunch over. A harp’s eyes sit slightly back and to the sides of his head, giving him binocular vision with a slightly more panoramic field of view than other humanoids. Like many avians, harps have hollow bones and reproduce by laying eggs.
Harps tend to form close-knit communities wherever they find themselves, whether in an integrated community or in an isolated rural hamlet. In urban centers, they are incorrigible gossips, seeking news of far and wide and juicy tidbits regarding local persons of note. Within a more isolated harp community, individuals recognize mutual reliance and willingly work together towards large goals with group benefits.
Harp culture tends to mimic its surroundings. In integrated communities, the slang of harp youth commonly includes multiple phrases from the tongues of the town. A community of harps in relative isolation usually experiences changing fads in speech, fashion, or crafting that is dependent on the gossip of season. Harps have a knack for language and pick up new ones quickly.
Most harp cultural tradition of the region is rooted in the three primary harp schools of the region. Elder historians recounting ancient tales is a revered past time, and impromptu games of skill are a constant among any harp celebration or festival.
Urban harp easily adapt to the political structure of the settlement they are in, but isolated harp communities will commonly form around a tribal council of elders. Councils use very little by way of codified law, preferring to settle conflict with public arbitration. While urban harps are usually unafraid to speak up in the face of non-harp authority, harps living in isolated harp-dominant communities still defer to their revered elders for wisdom and advice.
Harps are seen as a bringer of news and re-tellers of tales. Most sentients in the region have no means of near-instantaneous distance communication, and most races will (correctly or not) assume any given harp has some juicy bit of news or gossip to share. Materialistic harps tend to form friendships with goblins or ratfolk over the acquisition and possession of favored baubles and treasures. In larger communities, the harp knack for linguistics often finds them work as translators and unbiased arbiters. Harps of an adventuring constitution can usually work amiably with individuals of any given race, with the sole exception be the deep-seated and unshakable racial distrust of catfolk present in all harp.
Harps tend to be neutral, though those who allow their impulsiveness to get the better of them lean toward chaotic neutral. Religious beliefs vary from tribe to tribe; some worship the traditional harp gods (which are aspects of better-known deities), while others take to the worship of regional gods or celestial spirits. Harps can be fickle with regard to their patrons, quickly abandoning religious customs when they cease to provide any tangible benefit. Many embrace polytheism, picking and choosing to uphold the tenets of whatever deities best suit them at the time.
In an effort to expand their horizons, to learn, and to grow into their adult abilities, many harp turn to a life of adventuring, seeking fame and fortune on the road or to advance their training through overcome trials and conflict. A common harp belief portrays a life on the road as a series of experiences and trials that form a path to enlightenment. Some take this to mean a path of spiritual empowerment; others view it as a way to perfect their skills. Despite their avian frailty, with their quick reflexes and quicker wits, harps make excellent rogues and rangers, while those with a strong connection to the spirit world become oracles. Those disciplined in the practice of martial arts take jobs as bodyguards and armed couriers in order to profit from their talents.
Aerieminder, Aikio, Bukka, Chak-Chak, Cheetchu, Chuko, Daba, Ebonfeather, Gildedhackle, Highroost, Kankai, Kraugh, Mikacha, Pezzack, Ruk, Taicho, Tchoyoitu, Xaikon, Zhanyae.