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Are Harpies Beast People ?


Agentorange

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When Glorantha gives you an obvious undeveloped placeholder sometimes it's useful to integrate it with another RL inspiration and triangulate. For example IMG the historical Magra retains a kind of Vampira protogoth vibe despite now being formerly classified as one of the minor peoples who indulged their ambition in the Bright Empire and were punished for it later.

"Your wings or your song, Magra. Choose." - Pseudarkatika

duckipedia-zwartemagica_06.jpeg.20d71dcfe636c626e7d1c9d5de615cc9.jpeg

Some placeholders never get integrated in this way and it's a little sad when it happens.
 

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18 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Good question. The harpies spread disease, are consistently lumped with the creatures of Chaos, and certainly associate with Chaos in Dorastor. But they do not have Chaos features.

So what is their origin? The answer is that Gloranthan scholars don't know. The Wind Children resolutely reject the idea that they are kin. Harpies are recorded in Second Age and earlier documents, which means they don't have a connection with the Beast Folk of Dragon Pass. One scholar suggested that they a Beast Folk ancestress and even hypothesised an ancestral goddess (Magra) but this was a scholarly artifice. 

Mmmmm....mind you even scholarly artifice can contain the truth  😁

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5 hours ago, Agentorange said:

I'm going to disagree with you a bit there. although Glorantha does undoubtedly nick stuff from real world mythology: Harpies, Manticores, Minotaurs and so on. it does very much then go off in a completey different direction in how it handles them. for example in our world the Minotaur was a the offspring of Pasiphae ( cursed by Poseidon ) and a divine bull. In Glorantha they have several possible origins - one of which  is experimentation by the EWF. But since there is no Poseidon or Pasiphae in Glorantha then that option isn't there.

I'd argue that there most certainly is a Gloranthan perspective. As you say Glorantha is an invention. Greg Stafford started inventing it and others followed. But across the years  there has been enough material published or produced some of it the 'official' or 'semi official' versions of Glorantha that it's grown it's own body of myths, legends , stories and so on. certainly if you want to write supplements for Glorantha you have to take some of it as 'fact'

Which leads me neatly back to Harpies. What I wanted to know was there an official of semi official explanation for harpies in Glorantha ?

And the answer was: Yes ( as pointed out by David Scott )

"Magra is the ancestress of the harpies. Little is known of them or their mythology, but she is thought to have originated among the Beast Peoples. She followed evil deities, and was killed by some right-thinking hero before the Dawn. Harpies are rare, surviving in places such as mountains and the Wastes, but Dorastor has been a haven for them since its reawakening in the Second Age."

Which came from an official publication, and which I as I've stated I should have remembered as I own said supplement. So I think there most certainly is a Gloranthan perspective or explanation.

However, a Gloranthan minotaur is a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a human being, like the Greek singular Minotaur, rather than, say, a gigantic vole with the face of a cat who walks upon its hind legs, or a bull with large butterfly wings, a hybrid of Bos taurus and Troides minos. There is obviously a family resemblance here, one which is probably mediated through the transformation of the singular monstrous Minotaur into a species of many minotaurs in fantasy fiction in the 20th century. A Gloranthan harpy is very obviously not a smeerp being called a rabbit. She has wings, and is birdlike.

And as harpies do not have any developed Gloranthan presence beyond a vague definition that was just now declared largely meaningless in this thread, there is very clearly not a "real" answer. And as harpies are clearly pointing to something from folklore, rather than if you were to call them "Jud the Ineffable Vugs" or "smeerps of the second water", then it is entirely appropriate to offer answers which draw from that folklore, rather than sitting on our hands waiting for someone to anoint an answer with the oil of canonicity.  

Though a Lunar through and through, she is also a human being.

"I just read an article in The Economist by a guy who was riding around with the Sartar rebels, I mean Taliban," -Greg Stafford, January 7th, 2010

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56 minutes ago, Agentorange said:

Mmmmm....mind you even scholarly artifice can contain the truth  😁

Yes - but they often cover it up as well. 

Really the origin of the harpies is pretty wide open. Gods Age curse. Rinliddi folk who sided with Chaos in the Greater Darkness or during the Gbaji Wars. Escaped failed EWF experiment.

Personally, I give them an ancient Pelorian ancestry. Bird worshipers who were cursed by Chaos. 

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7 minutes ago, Eff said:

However, a Gloranthan minotaur is a creature with the head of a bull and the body of a human being, like the Greek singular Minotaur, rather than, say, a gigantic vole with the face of a cat who walks upon its hind legs, or a bull with large butterfly wings, a hybrid of Bos taurus and Troides minos. There is obviously a family resemblance here, one which is probably mediated through the transformation of the singular monstrous Minotaur into a species of many minotaurs in fantasy fiction in the 20th century. A Gloranthan harpy is very obviously not a smeerp being called a rabbit. She has wings, and is birdlike.

And as harpies do not have any developed Gloranthan presence beyond a vague definition that was just now declared largely meaningless in this thread, there is very clearly not a "real" answer. And as harpies are clearly pointing to something from folklore, rather than if you were to call them "Jud the Ineffable Vugs" or "smeerps of the second water", then it is entirely appropriate to offer answers which draw from that folklore, rather than sitting on our hands waiting for someone to anoint an answer with the oil of canonicity.  

I can't help but feel that you've entirely missed my point.....

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17 hours ago, Jeff said:

Yes - but they often cover it up as well. 

Really the origin of the harpies is pretty wide open. Gods Age curse. Rinliddi folk who sided with Chaos in the Greater Darkness or during the Gbaji Wars. Escaped failed EWF experiment.

Personally, I give them an ancient Pelorian ancestry. Bird worshipers who were cursed by Chaos. 

Argh no ! 😄 The reason I asked was I found all my old RQ3 notes about harpies that I'd made, spells etc etc. And was updating them to RQG. I'd gone with the Ancestral Magra as the base for it all. Now I'll have to think of something else. Mind you YGMV and all that, so I suppose  can still run with it in my games.

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2 hours ago, Agentorange said:

Argh no ! 😄 The reason I asked was I found all my old RQ3 notes about harpies that I'd made, spells etc etc. And was updating them to RQG. I'd gone with the Ancestral Magra as the base for it all. Now I'll have to think of something else. Mind you YGMV and all that, so I suppose  can still run with it in my games.

I'd still use Magra as the Ancestress. Lord of Terror p85 hints at her being originally related to Vrimak.

Quote

A Dara Happan wall mosaic shows Vrimak, the Bird of Heaven, flying above the broken body of a harpy, and this is thought by some to represent her casting out from the race of birds for some evil.

 

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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