Harpy Talismans

Mimi, please look after yourself. And keep out of trouble. Follow what KLO-toon says and don't cause him trouble. Please.

Observation Log of KLO Mimi Lakes: Harpy Talismans

Strongmonth the 14th, Year 52 of the Century of the Nymphs, 26th Cycle

The Beast-kin town of Solkry is not so nice and quaint as you might think.

Town Specs

Location

The town is located on the edge of the western mountains, bordering the Plains. It is as far south of the Harpy tree as the Dragon-kin King's mountain is north of the Harpy tree, which makes it close to the mid point between the Underground Entrance and where the western mountains meet the Ocean.

Population

There are three main families within this town. With about 100 Beast-kin, there seems to be a lively trade with the Underground and some other Beastkin towns. The families are pretty much the face of the town, and seem to run everything with smiles and filled handshakes.

Family 1: The were a Warbeast-kin family with wings. I've never before seen Beast-kin (that weren't dragon-kin) with wings.
Family 2: Smelled like snake-kin, but more slimy? Maybe they were Half-Snake-Frog-kin.
Family 3: Were the most run down lot of the three, like they were constantly trying to be cheerful, but their eyes were very tired.

Trade

The main source of trade, and what fills most handshakes, are Harpy talismans. When we first came to the town, the street stalls were beckoning us over with offers and sales of the things. It kinda looked fun so I jumped around to all the stalls and bought one from each.
(pic of talismans - pouches and red tassles- different sizes. Harpy pics on top)
When I asked for what each did, the answers were pretty vague:

• Keep away the Harpies

• Give good fortune against Harpies

• Protect your sleep

• Enhance magic

• Experimental success

At first, I just thought maybe they were trying to scam people with pretend magic spells to try and compete with Mermaid charms or something. But then I started taking some of the talismans apart (one of them smelled like a dank Spice flavour), and I found sleeping powder and Spice in some of them. Afterwards, our team found that there was dried blood and some other bodily things in them.

Overstay

The town doesn't have an inn. The three main families each have a house or two that will let a visitor stay the night. A second night is pushing it, and they didn't have to say 'don't stay a third' their cold gazes could nearly freeze the temperature.

At first, we thought they were just unfriendly, and went to another town at night. Luckily we hid ourselves coming back the next day, as they were a lot more closed off than we thought. And the three families were the most evident of this.

Harpy Ritual

Yeah, the blood and body parts in the talismans? An experiment to see what has been left out of previous Forbiddings. The sleeping powder and Spice? Putting people to sleep and seeing if what they dream can help the ritual. The ritual itself? Harpies are brought in at nights and used as slaves.

The ritual itself was pretty confusing, like, they had worked out the bounds of so many different Forbiddings and had this bumpy twisting pathway to get around them. Every 2-4 days, a Harpy was brought screeching into the town. I've never heard of them being outside of their Harpy Tree though, but I guess that's why it took 3 of the winged Warbeast-kin family to bring a half-bound Harpy into the centre of the town.

Once the Harpy was in the centre of the town, there was one of two rituals that took place.

• The first was that the Harpy would try and be controlled by a Beast-kin. These were generally 'family members', and mostly of the third family in the town. They would take their talismans, which were a different type (I think just to match what the Harpy ate, as opposed to needing the talisman themselves). Then they would use their body magic and try to move the Harpy. They could get it to do some movements, but most of the time, it would only work in a certain area of the Harpies body - particularly if the talisman given to the Harpy cut put inside its body after being cut open.

• The second was that a Harpy would control a Beast-kin. This one didn't work too well, but there were a few sleeping residents that were moved into the centre of town (from their houses) and one of them did manage to slap themselves as the Harpy tried to get away from one of the Beast-kin using body magic on it. The residents were returned to their houses before sunrise.

The first part of the ritual was the same. A Harpy enters a preset circle in the centre of the town. Members from the Half-Snake-Frog-kin family would surround the Harpy and force it to eat some of the talismans. These ones had blue tassles though, so from what we saw, we think they are paired with the red tassled ones sold.

At the end of the night, the Half-Snake-Frog-kin members would take some clippings or blood or whatever else they could get their hands on (there was a whole toe one night, and another night they cut its side open) and then the Warbeast-kin would take the Harpy back. No one else (apart from the three family members and an occasional traveller) would remember what had happened.

Travellers

Most travellors through the town seemed to be a part of some medical organisation. The only times that a Harpy was cut open, was when one of these travellors were around. KLO-toon has written more about this, including which company they all belong to.

Reflection

It was really hard to stay quiet every single night. And the task got really boring after a while. So much so that I ran off a couple nights and went to see the Harpy tree. Wow, do the Harpies screech a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Most of them didn't recognise me (I was in my water form most of the time), except for one boy. His head was more people shaped than the more feathered heads of the rest of the Harpies. The boy had big eyes, and stared at me. How did he see me? Or maybe he was just thirsty. He didn't flap around as much as the others, and didn't make a sound. I nearly got eaten by three of them so I swooshed away as quick as I could. They really only do fly around the Harpy Tree up to a certain radius.

Supervisor Feedback

Good use of questions.
Again, the reflection isn't meant to start a different topic (in this case your Harpy visit). Either mention the topic earlier, or send a separate report.
So, while we cannot publically publish this as an academic resource, we can still count this as one of the report submissions for your pathway to KLO-2. It wil be kept with the Search and Rescue team for now.

Council Notes

... Get the Hero and his party to 'clean up' the town.
We'll have the medical company investigated.