Harpies

Aiaosian harpies are not a natural race, having been born as the result of a curse. The original harpies were servants of the Regime who turned to cannibalism when an expedition against the Ophionic Empire was lost in the mountains. They fed only on the dead, but among those dead was the child of a High Elven Arcomarshall who took offence to those – mostly ordinary Ash and Wood Elven soldiers of the Regime – who valued their survival over the sanctity of their (slain) betters.
To punish them for 'impiety towards the natural order,' the survivors were cursed. For eating their superiors, they were cursed with the aspect of carrion birds, and for singing to keep their spirits up, their voices were changed to things of horror. They were supposed to die, shunned and degraded.
Surprisingly, however, the harpies thrived. The originals continued to serve together and became a kind of special forces unit within the Regime. They honed their ravaged voices into weapons, capable of striking fear, and eventually also fascination. In time, they passed their curse to some – although not all – of their descendents.
After the fall of the Regime, most of the harpies – connected in the minds of the populace to the old order by their long years of military service – were at last pushed to the hinterlands, where many succumbed to the hunger inflicted on them by their ancestral curse. Some ultimately fell to preying on other thinking beings, but others resisted, and continue to resist, those urges, subsisting on the meat of simple beasts.
Aiaosian harpies live in flocks that can be as large as sixty individuals - the size depends on the scope and richness of the flock's territory - including flightless gerents and children. They nest in an elevated area known as a rookery, usually caves high up in desert cliffs, although sometimes on tree platforms, sharing communal roosts and community spaces. They favour a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and their communities support small numbers of both specialist warriors and spellcasters - known as spearshrikes and wingspeakers, both train according to principles passed down from their military founders - who act as defenders and diplomats for the flock. The spearshrikes are led by a veteran known as a warmaestro, and the flock as a whole by the Elder, the oldest and wisest of the wingspeakers. The warmaestro has two additional duties: first, to ensure that all members of the flock are trained in the songs, the flock's specific interpretation of the original battle chants; and second, if the flock should be so fortunate as to outgrow its territory, to lead half of the flock to find a new rookery.
Aiaosian harpies generally recognise the same three genders as elves. Although rumour tends to paint them as simple, even savage, they are as intelligent and capable of growth, learning and sophistication as any humanoid race. A part of their reputation comes from an only-grudging acceptance of other races' nudity taboos, and attachment to their ancestral weapons of choice, cunningly balanced maces and daggers made of bone.