Talk:Harpy

Subtypes
I think that Scree may not be a species but a culture of sorts and that the griffon like creatures are pets, or mounts, or some kind of beast of burden as they don't look anything alike.... Unless its a freakish larval stage. JediRogue 15:39, 25 September 2006 (CDT)
 * Or dimorphism even more extreme than the Margonites' four-armed males and two-armed females with flaming wings. I didn't see any male Harpies. -- Gordon Ecker 23:24, 25 September 2006 (CDT)


 * The Skree article definetly shouldn't have been moved to Harpy, because these aren't equivalent terms:
 * a) Skree clearly is the name of the "super-category", use in many places. Most importantly in the Skree Battle conscription order. Furthermore the vast majority of Skree (including the Skree griffons) have "Skree" in their name, and they all drop "Skree Wings". Yes, the Skree are called "Skree Harpies" or "harpies" in some quest dialogues, but "Skree" is still the much more predominant term.
 * b) Maybe not all Skree are harpies. Some Skree look like griffons. These may or may not be separate species. Maybe this is akin to the Ice Golem belonging to the Stone Summit without being a dwarf. The Skree griffons trigger the Skree Battle bonus, but we don't know for sure if conscription orders necessarily indictate the same species, or maybe the same "organization" or "culture". Does anybody have the exact wording of the Skree Battle? Does it say "Skree" or "Skree Harpies"? And: Did anybody do an EoE test with Skree harpies against Skree griffons? Maybe there will be a weapon "of Skreeslaying" or "of Harpyslaying" or "of Griffonslaying" in the retail version of Nightfall, so we can check.
 * c) Maybe not all harpies are Skree. Skree Harpies may actually be a subtype of harpies, like Caromi Tengu are a subtype of Tengu. Maybe there are other types of harpies in Kourna or Vabbni. We just don't know yet.
 * In any case, Skree must be an article of it's own, not a redirect to Harpy. Infact, I'm re-creating the Skree article right now, moving some of the content of the current Harpy article back there. Once we have a final, compelling clarification about how Skree, harpies and griffons are linked together, we can re-merge the Skree and Harpy articles. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 02:34, 26 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Copied from Category talk:Harpies, because it is relevant here:
 * There is a conflict about how skree, harpies and griffons link together. See Talk:Harpy. For now, I'll create a category Category:Skree harpies and a category Category:Skree griffons. Both will be a sub-category of Category:Skree, but Category:Skree griffons will also be a sub-category of Category:Griffons and Category:Skree harpies will also be a sub-category of Category:Harpies. That seems like the best solution for now, based on what we know. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 02:44, 26 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I just noticed that all Skree griffons have been moved back to Category:Harpies. :/ Hmmm .... I think that was wrong, but I'll not revert it for now. Let's see what others think about it. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 02:17, 29 September 2006 (CDT)


 * Hmm, I was unaware of this dicussion, sorry about moving stuff back and forth. Ok, so here is why the skree are harpies:
 * The blessing/hunt conscription order says "Skree Harpies." I don't have a screen shot though.
 * Now, should we divide harpies into "sub-harpy" categories for Skree Harpies and Blee Harpies (I made that up)? I say we don't unless there is an over-arching species that cover many subspecies like Plants (some drop roots, some drop seeds, some drop petals...). Otherwise, the Harpies are like the Skales. There will be Bog Skales and Skale Lashers and Frigid Skales. There are Ancient Skales. We have not been sub-categorizing Stone Summit into Stone Summit infantry units and Stone Summit mounted units. Any such division should not be arbitrary based on who created the article first, but a decision made in the style and formatting page of the Bestiary.
 * As far as the griffon harpies vs the humanoid harpies, I think we wait till the game comes out and test with EoE. As it stands now, the Skree Hatchlings/Griffons could either be like Abyssals or they could be like Ice Golems. Abyssals have a very different graphical model than the rest of the Shadow Army, yet they trigger EoE and drop the same drops and so forth. So, we do not make up a Regular Shadow Army category and a Really Ugly Shadow Army category. :) However, Ice Golems are a different species than Stone Summit. They do not take extra damage from Dwarf-slaying mods and will not trigger EoE (never personally checked it). This is why we "categorize" them as Stone Summit (because they drop the badge) but we list the species as Golem/Construct.
 * So, for the Griffons, keep them as harpies now (not because I said so, but because they share the same drops, Skreechy Wings) and when the game comes out, someone should test with EoE if the game thinks they are the same species or not. If they are not, then we classify their species as Griffon, but keep their categorizations as Harpy, like the Ice Golems.
 * As for breaking Harpies into Skree and Blee and then breaking Skree into More-Bird-Like skree and More-Human-Like Skree... That, again, is an issue to be taken up in the S&F page of the Bestiary. All the subdivisions we have (Jade separate from Mursaat or Enchanted separate from Forgotten) is because there is a technical difference between the two subcategories. i.e. no corpses, no EoE trigger.. Something. --Karlos 02:43, 29 September 2006 (CDT)


 * I agree that we should not take any action in any direction until the game comes out and we have a clearer picture. Many questions that we can currently only speculate about will probabaly be answered clearly in early November when we can check for other types of harpies and griffons (and the related conscription order blessing) in Kourna and Vabbi, and we have done an EoE test of harpies against griffons. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 02:55, 29 September 2006 (CDT)