Harpy (Flight of the Golden Harpy)

The Harpies are a sapient species native to the planet Dora in the Flight of the Golden Harpy Universe.

Biology
The harpies are winged humanoids. Predominately possessing brown colored hair and wings, there also exists a rare golden colored harpy. They are a dimorphic species, males only possessing wings while females remain flightless. Harpies are unable to verbal communicate though they communicate via telepathy within their own species or even though that have a harpy ancestor.

Background
Hundred seventy-five years ago the first Dorial explorers came to the planet Dora. There they discovered the harpy community. The harpies, not fearing humans, welcomed those men. The men saw that their females looked like women and learned the harpies were a gentle race. Desiring the females, men caught, caged, and raped them. Many females died of shock and heart failure from the abuse. Their males attempted to rush to their defense were killed by the mens' weapons.

Some females survived, and, to the men’s surprise, became pregnant. When the featherless winged males were born, they disgusted the men, thinking their offspring were four-armed freaks. To cover their crimes, the men created a elaborate lie that the harpies were monsters that raped their women. Legal hunts over the males were perpetuated by fear from this lie. Since then the males have been exploited in hunts and driven to extinction.

Culture
The harpies are a culture that was nearly wiped out by humans who regard them as animals. Harpies are voiceless, tree-dwelling vegetarians. The brown-winged, dark-haired harpies are the most prevalent. The goldens were a rare subspecies, more aggressive, and known to dominate the flocks.

Currently the males live in fear at the prospect at being hunted for their wings. The golden harpy was nearly rendered extinct by the human colonists. Their wings are regarded as prized trophies, worth twenty-thousand credits.

There exists even a ritual in which wounded male exposes his throat to the hunter and hopes to receive the same death as the past sacrificial fledglings. This courageous and honorable death make the harpies believe they are the enlightened, the civilized ones over the lowly human beasts.