Harpy Totem

Harpy Totem is a compact sculpture the size of a forearm, suspended on a frayed thong of fiber. The main body is carved from dark, weathered wood, its surface scored with fine lines that catch the light like scales. The face is a hawk-nosed harpy, beak sharp, eyes inlaid with pale shell that seem to watch you from every angle. Feathers run along the shoulders and down the carved wings, painted in coppery browns and ash-gray specks. A bead of resin seals the grain, giving the grain a stubborn gloss where rain has pooled and then run away. Legends say it was pressed into service by sky-treading clans who whispered to harpies to guard their nests, turning a simple souvenir into a warding charm. Today, it is not simply a trinket but a practical tool in the adventurer's kit. When planted, a faint thrumming rises from the wood as the feathers quiver, stirred by a breeze that never quite reaches the ground. In the right moment it releases a pale chorus of harpy calls—enough to draw attention away from your flank or soften a stubborn escort. Players deploy it to shape combat, placing it near a doorway to delay pursuers or along a corridor to coax patrols into predictable loops. It is not a hammer but a key: it opens space, buys seconds, and folds the wilds a fraction closer to your plan. Collectors will tell you it also looks splendid on a shelf, a reminder of the winged sentinels that haunt the high winds. On a dusk-dimmed expedition through a temple overgrown with vines and wind-bleached statues, the Harpy Totem seems to glow with memory. The engravings around its base mirror the reliefs etched into the walls: harpies circling a storm-tossed tower, clan symbols interlaced with runes that speak of watchful loyalties and old bargains. Either way, the artifact carries not just power but narrative—the sense that every expedition leaves behind a little more of the world’s secret history, etched in wood and resin and feather. Market chatter threads through that story as well. In the wild markets of saddle-strewn towns, I flick through Saddlebag Exchange and watch the Harpy Totem drift across price sheets as if it had wings. The listings ride the tides of events: when harpy patrols surge, demand climbs; when a new trinket steals the show, price settles again. It’s a small ritual, balancing need and whim, scarcity and story. A patient buyer can barter for a fair piece, trading copper and a tale about where the totem has stood for a night or two, while a hurried traveler might pay a touch more to secure it before a rival picks up the last one. Having held it in the palm of one fog-kissed evening, I feel the Harpy Totem's weight in more than metal and grain. It reminds me that the world is layered—a battlefield, a memory, and a museum all at once—and that totems are not simply tools but invitations: to look up, to listen, and to imagine the skies where the harpies once kept their quiet watch.