One hex southeast and three northwest of Alakran.
These harpies were at the middle of a few weeks of adventure for the party as they fanned out from their base of Alakran seeking to do good in the surrounding country. Monsters in folklore are often cast in the role of a nemesis which punishes or embodies the wrongdoing of humanity. Yes, in 5th edition D&D they are also tasty parcels of experience points best dealt with by reducing their hit points to zero, but why not both? Such was my reasoning as I set up this extended harpy encounter, the brood of the azure queen, Kelaino.
One point of curmudgeonry should be explained. D&D harpies have always had the charm abilities of a different mythical beast, the sirens. I give back to the harpies their true mythical power attested by Hesiod, Apollodorus, and others: to carpet-bomb a place with their repellent excrement.
We have here a flock of some forty ugly vulture-bodied hrpies led by their blue-plumed, beautiful queen Kelaino, whose voice is the true seductive call of the Sirens of legend. Their lair on the map is a dead, twisted, and thoroughly befouled tamarisk tree, from which hang the skeletons of a man adn an axe-beak bird. A modest and clean cairn of stones, with the look of a grave, is nearby.
In this region a large group of the bird-women dwell in a cave far to the south which may or may not connect to the lair of sleeping Ekidna herself. The harpies are embodiments of revenge, with a cruel and petty disposition but serving a larger, ancient justice tied to the Earth, and linked to certain moral beliefs of Sandwalkers and folk magic.On their mission they are led by one who is fair to look on and musical, such as Kelaino. This represents the seductiveness and sweetness of the idea of revenge. But the parthenic eggs the Queen lays give birth to less impressive birds, when young still somewhat admirable in a strutting way, but maturing into bitter and twisted creatures who only grow more violent and malodorous. This represents the befouling and hateful consequences of an extended vendetta. It is not wrong to slay these agents of primal justice, but it is better to propitiate them; exterminating them will not quell the root of the violence.
By the harpies' account, the foul
flock had been sent as vengeance for the wrongs of the "bird-rider
Gimil" (here, they refer to the axe-beak-mounted cavalry of Wahattu) against his wife. He violated the law of sanctuary to pursue her
into the desert on her way to Zigmunus (see hex #30) and there struck her down. The
harpies punished this crime by slaying him and his bird. They were sent
into the lands of men to punish all men but especially bird riders, for
seven years, of which two now remain.
After some initial victories against harpy flocks numbering six to ten, the Band of Bronze secured an audience with Kelaino on neutral ground. She did admit that her pack had harassed men in
accordance with the terrible verdict of the earth but retorted that
they could not name one fatal victim, while sixteen of her offspring
had by now been laid low by the adventurers. She welcomed the overture
to peace. But she admonished that only a profound act
of penitence from the captain of the bird-riders would provide justice
for Tabitum, the victim of the slain rider, Gimil-Addad, who lay in that
cairn by the harpy tree where hung the bones of Gimil and his fowl. With
impatience, she spat that it was not her duty to divulge the terms of
this atonement, which must be sought among the usual prophets and sibyls
by those who would defend men. And she warned that exterminating the
harpy pack before their term of punishment was over would only bring
back twice as many from the caves of Ekidna, as this pack had once numbered ten instead of forty, having doubled twice after efforts to exterminate them.
After a perilous pilgrimage to the Ship Rock some miles to the west, the Band found their answer from a sibyl of the dervishes. This seer ruled that the high captain of the Never-Retreating Spearheads of Dawn must go to the harpy tree with his ten war companions, of which Gimil-Addad was one, for all these men swore an oath by the River of Dead to share in both glory and shame. There the captain, as responsible for his troop, must sacrifice his finest riding bird on the grave of Tabitum, and all must grovel and beg forgiveness from the victimized dead. Only that would satisfy the harpies.
Little more need be said about the diplomacy that eventually led to the required sacrifice being made and the harpies flying south for good. Carrying rugs and blankets between them, the harpies also made off with the loot they had garnered in their stay: a pay chest with the markings of the Obliterating Fists legion, with some 850 gp in lesser coinage; five shields, on the back of one of which was painted a map to a 9000 gp treasure; and a sack with 20 clay bottles of pomegranate wine, only 8 of which are good, but of such a vintage as to be worth 50 gp each. Shields and bottles are all befouled and in need of cleaning before they can be used or sold.
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