The other main barrier to playing this character within an actual system is that a harpy player character would have to be homebrewed.

But I like the vibe of a character from an "everyone knows they're all evil monsters" species (which can canonically have weapons proficiency and work for other villains, indicating some sapience) going undercover and participating in Sword Coast adventuring like any other person.

I'd be building a backstory from the kind of role I'd want the character to take on in an adventuring party: foraging, crafting, potion-making, a small amount of magic, and non-tanky combat with bow and/or quarterstaff. Air support maybe, but rn I'm playing with them not having flight for a while, maybe due to an injury

where the wings still have to be hidden but can't be used to fly; regaining flight might be a short- or long-term goal for the character.

They'd be Chilchuck-level reticent about personal information: "I'm here and cooperating, aren't I?" but willing to open up about their history once some trust had been built.

It'd be even better if they could have backstory with one or more of the other characters so the important stuff didn't have to a secret within the party; the main reason for hiding it is that 5th Edition rules-as-written still list harpies as monsters and changing that would require a bunch of extra worldbuilding from the DM.

The classes I was looking at were Bard with a side of wild-magic Sorcerer, the former to explain their singing voice and the latter because supernatural heritage and handy side goal of having to figure out how to shot wild magic.

In rules-as-written, harpies are a relatively short-lived race, which I feel could contribute to their rules-as-written apparent lack of cohesive cultural memory.

Learning so early to use their voices as their primary weapon for acquiring food, and having developed (relatively) recently as a very angry species and been hunted as monsters by all the "civilized" peoples, they could simply have been too busy to bother collecting their own oral history, much less a written one.

You need some level of security and community for that.

It could easily be something harpies are occasionally trying to do but which haven't spread beyond a few flocks, since they don't really have inter-flock diplomacy or governance either.

For some reason this harpy has spent enough time in settled areas to culturally pass as a non-monster and acquire specialized skills like herbalism (and maybe literacy to research both herbalism and magic, though they might find it easier to draw plants than write their names).

They have long black hair, hide their wings and tail magically but thankfully have a regular set of arms to work with, run like a raptor because their legs (also concealed magically) are birb, and usually present as masculine for safety but their gender is honestly eh.

Long face, small ears, black eyes, tough hands. Very good vision and aim. Fast metabolism; always carrying smoked jerky and often making more when encamped after hunting, having learned that it's a good way to make larger amounts of food light enough to carry around.

Omnivore but with a slant toward proteins. Doesn't like to look at people when they're talking (eye contact feels more belligerant than other body language like leaning toward the person), but is a very good listener when things are calm. Has a reputation for clumsiness because their hidden wings (disguised as a huge cloak) bump into things.

There's a risk of coming off as an edgelord with a concealed-disadvantageous-past character, but I feel having backstory with other PCs and making sure the character is present and contributing rather than brooding in a corner would head that off.

Haven't decided whether they're reticent or garrulous (either way would work), but if the former, it'd be a neutral kind of reticence where they might not start conversations but are fine being part of them.

(Party interaction would be a main element of gameplay for me. Combat is fine, but I also want the campsite shenanigans.)

I remember being worried about main character syndrome when I first started rping, though I didn't know it by that term yet. It was one reason I often chose support characters rather than protagonists and tried to balance credible capabilities with credible disadvantages and obstacles.

Especially with OCs (which have all been Tron OCs so far), I didn't want to develop a character who was the only special one of something or other. That kind of thing felt like a barrier to fitting them into whatever plot was going on with everyone else.

With this character, I'd want to focus more on a game's main plot than the implications of a homebrew-monster-species backstory.

Ooooh, sounds cool!

Thanks!~ This character's very bare-bones at this point, but I think they've got potential!

You're welcome! Yeah, I'm sure you can flesh them out and have fun with them!

ahahahaha very important half-asleep thought

the wings are disguised as....

a Cloak of Billowing

which is a magic cloak whose magic.... makes it billow dramatically

and that's all

of course things are knocked over. darned sorcerer and their darned Cloak of Billowing.

it's the perfect disguise!

Oh that's such a fun idea!

omg, I love that....

MewtwoWarrior I was giggling so hard!

Nightsail The character or the cloak? I definitely had to roll out of bed cackling and write down the cloak the minute I thought of it.

There are so many good silly D&D items.

It's delightful! 🤭

<3

both, but the cloak had me laughing too. XD

yay!~~

brain definitely wants this harpy to be named Harper and their birb traits to be based on harpy eagles, because I am nine and hilarious

"no I'm not with the Harpers, that's just my name, why does everyone ask that"

while their primary instrument will always be their voice, it sounds like a small harp in 5e rules can weigh as little as 5 lbs, so the question is whether a first-level adventurer could afford a 35+gp instrument or whether it's funnier if they don't play stringed instruments at all

(this is one of the places where I'm inclined to be careful about what I give my ocs, because I personally have always wanted to mess around with harps)

Oh that's fun!

Harrow's a potential substitute if I decide not to go with Harper. Also figuring that if the character starts at level 1, that'll be a sorcerer level, since wild magic's probably something that would manifest in someone with magical descent and bard is something they'd have to actively learn.

They can pretend to be a bard as a cover for their voice.

My small amount of research is so far unclear on how bards are credentialed.

ok this is a problem: Charisma is important to both bard and sorcerer classes and H is fine but might not have that much charisma, unless it all comes from their voice

aw man, Intimidation is a Charisma check

and so are Persuasion and Deception

Arcana, Insight, and Religion are Intelligence checks, but the character's background wouldn't work for Religion or Arcana, except on very specific topics

(these are the six Skills from which a Sorcerer can start with two)

I could start with ranger rather than sorcerer (this would probably also be an easier class for a beginner to learn), with the claiming-to-be-a-bard thing still hiding the magic in the voice; it looks like rangers do get to learn spells as they progress;

their magic coming from "the magical essence of nature" doesn't fit as well as a sorcerer's wild-magic, but their Skills do fit better.

Huh, also you get to choose three Skills instead of two.

(This is funny because I had Bel as a ranger for the five minutes I tried to rp them in roll20 before scheduling ate the campaign.)

Thinking about this more, it does make sense for this character to start as a Ranger with Outlander background and reserve potential Sorcerer and/or Bard developments for when they've been able to improve Charisma.

The regular travelers-clothes cloak could cover the wings and a long belted tunic could hide the tail; the feet are the biggest issue, because there's no fitting this in a boot.

source

(have I mentioned lately that harpy eagles are awesome)

Look at that. It's the size of a human foot and this bird is ONLY 2.5 FEET TALL.

I did not know that about the comparison to grizzly bear claws O:

ME EITHER

this is a heavy-duty bird that can carry off sloths and monkeys

Jeebus!

nooo you can't zap this innocent face

I keep trying to figure out how to design something that looks like a boot on the outside and lets that foot be comfortable on the inside and nope, does not compute XD

especially for traveling on foot

....I may actually have a few ideas, tbh. one sec, will sketch!

....something seems to be up with my stylus pressure, but we'll ignore that. /cough

and wow that did not turn out well, but QUICK SKETCH GO

basically, if you have something like a perch up in the ankle area, you'd allow for using the hind toe to hold onto the boot, rather than fitting into the inside to hold it on, plus

then it has somewhere to go

keep the boot covered by a folded-over "skirt" of sorts, and it'd help hide the actual shape of it, so as to make it harder to tell that it's not a standard thick humanlike leg in it, but a slimmer birdish one, too.

I'd also point out that you're probably not going to be working 100% off real-bird anatomy for his feet anyway. part of why they're so thin in species like cute little songbirdies is, the majority is strung up with tendons rather than muscles like our hands. a lot of birds have this thing where the digits open when the leg is extended, and closed when pulled

up -- hence you seldom see cute lil fluffball birbs perched with their legs fully extended, but quite often the seem to be sitting on their feet while out on a twig.

their wings are connected similarly - if the arm part is extended, then that finger-based outer edge/section will be spread out as well. you're not likely to see a wing that's both still folded

and has its wrist extended out like it's an arm.

~anatomy!~

there's also the odd point that depending on how long his legs are, it'd prolly look kinda funny anyway. ....maybe if his legs are shorter, the humanlike legs/boots are actually just disguised perches or something? so he's effectively just walking around on stilts the whole time... XD find a way to tie them onto himself so he doesn't accidentally let go....

ngl I LOVE YOUR BIRB ALREADY

ooooh, that's a great sketch! I had been thinking about a wedge-heel-style "perch"-in-shoe kind of thing but couldn't reconcile how the front toes would spread, but I still need to find a pic or video of a harpy eagle walking on level ground rather than perching,

since most of my irl birb-foot experience has been with chickens and their toes splay in a triangle as they walk but are closer together when wrapped around a perch.

(That particular adaptation in birb feet is really so neat. Having the foot lock around the perch when the birb sits lets them sit tight without expending extra energy to hold on!)

(And when you're that smol, that extra energy counts.

)

There'll definitely be some anatomical changes in the legs; the harpy I'm visualizing is more of a gradient from birb to humanoid than a half-and-half chimera. I'm planning to figure that out when I have a better mental picture and can do a sketch.

It does bring up the question of height though! /checks monster-manual info

(whoops, forgot the entry specifies that the bird elements are specifically vulture. Making it a playable species would involve some changes anyway, but I wouldn't be upset if I did have to switch; there are a lot of cool vultures.)

If the bird elements made the harpy short, they could try to pass as one of the shorter races instead of as a human, and that could be fun too!

(They would not try to pass as an elf. Harpies have bad history with elves.)

(I find the D&D 5e harpy lore much more interesting than the Pathfinder lore, and the process of developing a homebrew-5e-compatible character is interesting, even if I never plan to join an actual campaign; all the stats and rules will just become flavor if I ever make a journal for this character.)

But hey, I'm glad you like my ranger birb!

I'm having fun figuring them out!

ooh. yeah, you could probably do a higher heel more easily, tbh. more room in there for the back toe, and for having the perch thing in the first place!

also, might just be easier for them to make their own shoes - figure out a perch, attach it to a sole of some kind/carve one out of the base of the perch, and then attach basically a boot-cover sort of tent over it, so that to an outside view, it's totally just a boot, but it's full of something down below in the foot area, and a normal humanoid couldn't

put it on, but it's totally comfy for the harpy types?

if their feet are designed to splay out when open, I'm not sure if booting that would be as easy... might even be pretty uncomfy, for those toes to be so squished up.

could be possible that the splaying toes on the side are shorter than the central toes, too? not all birb foot shapes are triangular/pie-slice-shaped in front, after all

idk if it'd help any, for me to dump a bunch of char/species-musing junk for some fandom OCs of mine, since they're birbs too, but quite different... more like if humans gained some birb anatomy, rather than if birbs were working to pass for humanoid.

TOTALLY IMPORTANT QUESTION THOUGH no it's not but it amuses me since most birbs if not all lack the receptors for capsaicin, does this mean your harpy could eat ghost peppers with a straight face, be all happy about these sweet lil bitty fruits they found, and accidentally horrify everyone when they use a ton of them in their cooking. XD

aka The Cilantro Problem but with more potential for hilarity

I have to offline in a few minutes and would like to make a separate plurk tomorrow night for your birb OCs -- super interested in how you developed them but want to keep this plurk for thoughts about this OC!

But this VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION will depend on whether large-scale ghost pepper consumption has physical effects other than taste! If it would burn holes in their stomach lining they'd probably have a problem but would have learned to recognize the plant and not eat too much of it (but still enough to horrify everyone else)!

I can always PP if you want, lmfao

BEHOLD the party member whose food is nigh un-theif-able? NO ONE IS BRAVE ENOUGH TO STEAL THEIR LUNCH FROM THE FRIDGE AT WORK, IN THE MODERN ERA.

Nightsail I can make a regular plurk if you're comfortable with that, or you could do a pp!

oh, it's entirely self-indulgent PSL trash. LOL....

I mean, isn't that what we're all on here for

Hmm, it looks like the capsaicin thing is because birds swallow the seeds whole rather than chewing them like mammals, so the plants adapted to deter mammals but attract birds. I feel like this could go either way with D&D harpies--

they originated from a magically rage-mutated elf, so they have mammalian origins, but they're definitely not mammals anymore (their mammalian attributes are cosmetic and are used to attract prey), but also they still have teeth.....

ooooh. okay, that does make sense....

The D&D harpy-origin lore is wild. I don't like everything about it, but I do like it much better than the Pathfinder "ooooooh poor marginalized harpy males suffering under The Toxic Matriarchy" thing.

D&D harpies are just angry birbs (who can learn Common, sign contracts, and wield weapons).

So: we have an Outlander Ranger harpy disguised as a human(ish) Bard, who, being a magical creature and depending on the setting's plot, may multiclass into Sorcerer.

As for alignment: rules-as-written list harpies as Chaotic Evil, which clashes with my issues regarding categorically-evil sapient species living in survival mode for generations under constant threat of being destroyed as monsters (they count as Medium Monstrosities).

I'm inclined to be suspicious of applying moral alignments to entire species anyway and would expect any sapient creature's alignment to be flexible through character development.

Mechanically, the "law/chaos" axis seems to pertain to the character's allegience to or disregard for legal and social expectations, while "evil" denotes selfish rather than altruistic motivations. I'm a bit caught in the difference between external behavior and self-image here. Selfish and selfless motives are seldom actually separate.

I think I need to learn more about the role of 5e alignment as a mechanic, rather than a flavor description, to understand how an alignment label would affect the character's ability to interface with the setting. There are probably magics and items that perceive and act on alignment, for example.

In that sense, alignment wouldn't just be a personality trait or set of behaviors but a flexible but identifiable feature like hair color or scarring.

Either way, Harper's more like chaotic neutral.

And the 'chaos' is mainly about perceiving most humanoid laws and social conventions as externally imposed and appreciating their social utility but not feeling a personal attachment to maintaining them.

The likelihood of external consequences means it just makes more sense to not run around stealing or smashing things. Harper is "chaotic" in that results are more important to them than performing obedience as a virtue.

Harpies are not hierarchical, so the human insistance on familial, organizational, class, and gender hierarchies are generally just weird to them.

They recognize that everyone else finds those things important enough to quarrel and even kill over, and adjust their expectations of others and awareness of how others will react to them accordingly, but to them it's all tiringly performative.

Looking at Ranger equipment: they have two armor options. Leather is cheaper and lighter, scalemail (leather with metal scales sewn on) is more expensive and heavier. I'll leave that choice for inventory management when the character has stats.

The weight won't be an issue while Harper is without flight, but scalemail does have a Stealth disadvantage.

For weapons, an Outlander Ranger gets a staff, a longbow and quiver with 20 arrows, and either two Shortswords or two other simple melee weapons. Looking at a list, I do feel like a Ranger should have at least one axe for firewood reasons, but am not sure if a Handaxe can be used as a tool as well as a weapon.

Thrown weapons also have the disadvantage of 1. leaving your control and 2. leaving you without that weapon until you retrieve it.

It's unclear but probable from the description that they can also be used as close-range melee weapons, which would work much better for this character.

Rangers have proficiency with both simple and martial weapons, but martial weapons other than shortswords would have to be an upgrade from the given starting equipment.

hmmmm it looks like level 1 Rangers don't have magic, but can get two level 1 spell slots and two level 1 spells at level 2 and go on from there.

HA. I know what this character needs: SOUTHWEST GOTHIC CANYON WITCH VIBES

Delta Rae - Chasing twisters (Version promo)

character design now definitely includes a battered broad-brimmed hat