Helping Harpy

Could you possibly make her some form of prosthetic tongue?

There's always better options. Eat animals, find a new hunting ground, do something. It can fuckin' fly for god's sake, there's no excuse to stick around a desert wasteland without anything to eat. If she was hunting and killing people, it definitely wasn't entirely motivated by hunger.

I'll take failure to see the big picture for 500 Alex. First off, Usually chaotic evil means about 51%. By no means is that automatically evil. Lack of the evil sub-type means they aren't born evil, their behavior is learned. They've no biological need to do what they do, and could easily subsist off a more practical diet. Now, you have a tongueless harpy; a once in a lifetime opportunity dropping into your lap. She can't sing, depriving her of her main source of sustenance, and forcing her to rely on brute force, something she isn't biologically suited for; a perfect opportunity to wean her off her diet of human flesh and onto one that is both more practical and less evil. Now in the short run this is just one harpy, but in the long run, this potentially paves the way for more to follow in her footsteps (wingbeats?) either by observing her improved standard of living and becoming envious, or individuals who lacked the stomach to be fully comfortable with their lifestyle but lacking the conviction to turn their back on it seeing an example of a different way of life succeeding. It might take generations to come to fruition, but this is a slim chance to change the direction of a significant portion of a species.

I'd actually recommend, rather than using magic to feed her; which is impractical; trying to find some group, town, or settlement who would benefit from the skills and abilities a harpy brings to the table. Teach her to trade those skills for food. A harpy who cannot charm is barely a threat to your average militiaman, so her misbehaving wouldn't be much of an issue if she values her life.

Just take her with you. Maybe you'll find a healer on the road. Put some leather over her talons so she won't maim you as you sleep, and tie them on with a knot that requires thumbs to untie.

Then bring her with you and let her feed on the inevitable mountain of corpses an average adventuring party leaves in its wake.

This. Maybe she'll even take a liking to one of you and let you pump her rump after you put a ring on her talon. Paladin guy can marry you.

Or, at the very least, you get a pretty good scout with some nice eye candy.

She's a serial killer, that makes her CE simple as that. She should be brought to justice for her actions, not be helped to survive another day longer.

A harpy without charm is flying bird-bitch that can descend on an unfortunate militiaman at terminal velocity. This isn't a social experiment that will change whatever civilization Harpies have: It's a question of whether this Harpy deserves not only mercy, but also for the PCs to put in their time and effort to help them.

She's killed and eaten people, and due to the lack of a tongue, the only way she's able to defend her actions is through puppy eyes and having tits. Smite her ass.

Maybe they can reform her. Even completely fucking insane people can turn over a new leaf. Plus, if she causes trouble they can just stop her again.

It's a single bird person, not some end all evil. I say they smite the evil in her and not her entire being. That's true justice.

Consider that your close friend has been killed by her. How it would make you feel to see her get away with it scot-free?

She's a cannibalistic half-human serial killer. If they spare her and she goes right back to eating people, that's more deaths on their head. Just because she isn't some moustache-twirling demon king is not an excuse to let her go unpunished. Where's the justice for the dead? Is every dead man just going to have to go on to the Raven Queen's embrace knowing that the monster that straight-up ate them got hugged by adventurers and was taught magic because "Boo hoo she's so hungry and lonely because she already ate all the fuckers around her"?

What about the friends and families of the people she's killed, how are you going to make it up for them?

I believe that people can change. And while I would be upset, I would gain a lot more closure in getting her to understand that the action was wrong and preventing her from doing it again than just to kill her in cold blood.

Killing for revenge is an easy, empty act. It won't bring them back. But I can save a life in their place.

It's not saving a life. It's actively rewarding someone for doing an evil deed. It's not cold blood, as she attacked the party, and was defeated. She's not some autistic amoral entity, she's a fully sentient humanoid capable of free thought, and she has chosen to repeatedly kill other sentient beings.

No matter what, we can't bring back the people she has killed. Killing her wouldn't change that. But if she were to be redeemed, it means that we can prevent at least one more person from being lost. And maybe, just maybe, that lesson will spread.

So don't just let her go. Keep her around. Teach her what she's doing wrong. Give her alternatives, foster an appreciation for life. Evil begets evil. Kindness begets kindness. The past is important to remember but the present can change the future.

All the more reason to try and save her. A hero can't just abandon people to the horrible lives they've found themselves living. A hero saves people, even the villains if they can. It's wrong to kill a living, sentient, sapient being. The heroes aren't judges, juries, or executioners. They save people, and that harpy needs some redemption.

She's not redeemable. She's fully capable of making her own decisions, and she chose to kill again and again. Her claws are soaked with innocent blood, and her nest is lined with the bones of wayward travelers. It's not as if she's been a bandit stealing supplies from trade caravans or anything, which would have made more sense. There is no reason to let her live.

>Not judges, juries, or executioners
Well, let's bring in the hypothetical court of her peers. From a legal standpoint, she has engaged in murder and cannibalism. From a moral standpoint, she has murdered the friends and family of local villagers, and then ate them. She has committed dire crimes, and there's no reason for the party to spare her just so they can have a feathery waifu.

This desu. Eye for an eye is understandable, but ultimately barbaric and destructive. It makes evil go away and take another form, while this method not only reduces evil but increases good.

The harpy shouldn't go without punishment, but putting her to death when the opportunity for redemption exists is wasteful. I'd give her a cloak and some boots in an attempt to pass her as human while taking her with us in chains. Her punishment will be penance in the form of labor. Carry our shit, maybe help us in combat, do odd jobs for some of the people we meet on our adventures. All the while we'll be teaching her about good and orher ways of life. Perhaps one day she could even attempt to make amends with the families and friends of the people she killed.

You're going to enslave her, and hope that she'll learn kindness and mercy? And at the end, you hope she'll be forgiven by the families of the people she straight-up ate?

The merciful and just thing to do here is to execute her. It brings peace to the living, avenges the dead, spares her from suffering through a life obviously so shit she decided eating people was rational, and lets you collect any bounty on her head.

The reason to let her live is that she is alive, and she can think. The reason she should be saved is because she can be. Is it "just" to give up on someone so easily? If there's even the tiniest chance a life can be saved, a real hero takes it. A harpy is not worth more or less than a human. A living being is a living being, and they should be drug into the right path even if they're kicking and screaming all the way. All sins are capable of redemption, should the sinner seek forgiveness.

A real hero would try, because it's the right thing to do.

The reason they should spare her is because they're heroes. They should take the high road.

would you spare an old male human cannibal? or a naga? he killed and ate people for food. a lot. but he doesn't have tits and feathers. i highly doubt you'd put them in a sweater and make them carry your fannypack and apologize.

Alright, and if she looked like this instead would you still be as keen to redeem him?

Yes, because I'd be playing as a hero. And an old man would be a lot easier to keep in line than a harpy.

All life is sacred.

Yes. It's a person. They should live. I don't want to die so why should I want someone else to?

you can be a hero without also simultaneously being an altruistic doormat. you can save the day and punish the sinner. eating other sentient beings is when it lost the ability to apologize out of the situation. it could have eaten scorpions and cacti. it instead chose to eat people.

It's not just about redemption. It's about justice. She's killed, and killed, and killed. Look at what the others are proposing: That she be given gifts of magic and healing, that she be shackled and chains and forced to learn a life not of her own making, that she become something she is clearly not. It's not just a question of if the qt birb is salvageable, it's a question of whether it should be salvaged.

Really now? I assume you're doing nothing but non-lethal damage, then?

Being a hero doesn't always mean being nice. It means doing the right thing. Sometimes that means someone that deserves it has to get hurt. If you don't do that, then people will learn that all they need to do is repent for as long as the heroes are watching, and then return to their dastardly deeds.

You can punish the sinner without killing them.

Or you can teach the sinner about how and why their actions were a sin, what they should have done instead, and how to act better in the future, and they'd hopefully never sin again.

Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish.

no, we have to spare zugzug rapesword the merciless! when we disarmed him he said if we killed him we'd be the real monsters! quick, get me my comfort blanket and my warm milk, stat!

The punishment should fit the crime. Repeated murder and cannibalism is a capital crime.

That's the philosophy people are preachin', yeah.

A hero shouldn't kill something unless they have to. They should save them unless it's impossible. Killing in the heat of combat is fine, but when someone is at their mercy, they should excercise that mercy.

Would killing them really do anything to remove their sins from the world? Or would it just be one more dead body on the pile?

killing doesn't automatically become unconscionable because you want to rehabilitate something with absolutely no guarantee it will listen (or even deserves it to begin with). you're the man who will die in his bedroll, coup de grace'd by the hardened highwayman who you taught to plant rutabagas and say sorry with macaroni paintings.

It would prevent more bodies from being added.

This isn't zugzug rapesword. This is Tongueless the Harpy. Zugzug is a member of a faceless horse with many other faceless horde members that would reinforce his behavior and undo his conditioning.

The harpy is a singular, weaker being. With a soul. With a life. With a capacity to change, and nothing to undo it.

Nothing wrong with executions if the crime warrants.

it wasn't too weak to eat people. it had a soul and a life and it ate people. this crime would have dirtied any soul beyond the point of redemption. paladins have smite spells because sometimes, you gotta smite.

Good does not necessarily mean soft. Do you think I'd just give him a flower, pat him on the head, and let him walk around like he owns the place? No, I'd restrain him, and talk to him from the comfort of about 5 feet away from him as he's tied to a rock or tree. When I can trust him, I'll let him off a little asker, but no freedom until he proves himself.

Why should she receive mercy when she had none? It's about sending a message.

So you're saying that any member of a large group becomes worth nothing, whereas an antisocial cannibal fuckwit actually has a soul?

You're thinking with your dick not your heart, and masquerading it as morality you wretch.

Sending a message to who? A corpse?

My methods send messages to living people. Specifically, those I redeem.

As would my method.

Not a jury. The harpy has rights as a living being.

Souls can be cleaned with enough work.

your trust can be erroneously given. murderers with silver tongues and the capacity to lie and feign repentance exist. they will earn that trust and exploit it. they will take the given freedom with all the ferocity and mercilessness that they used all their lives for coins or food or women. someone will be spared, will lie, and will betray you. it's an inevitability.

I'm saying that while Zugzug has something to reinforce his behavior, the lone harpy hermit is more subject to change.

I'd do the same for a fucking pigman or a slime if I could. I place a high value on life.

And how many people will be saved before that inevitability? Even one makes it worth it. And the inevitability is nothing but motivation to be stronger than the evil I combat.

>I place a high value on life

Clearly you don't. You'd rather kill an Orc that you believe would return to their savage roots, but let a monster with a proven history of violence and borderline insane behaviour be exalted as an example of redemption.

the thing is, it could be literally none. you could be wrong the first time you try it. strength comes from the willingness to exercise power. if you hold it back, you're, in practice, very weak in reality. i could fall to my knees and repent until i get it right.

I'd save the orc if I knew it was isolated, was strong enough to restrain it, and it showed any semblance of potential to be kind, caring, selfless, and pure. But Orcs are rarely alone.

>I place a high value on life
If you did you wouldn't make excuses why the orc shouldn't be given mercy and chance of redemption to begin with. You sound false.

Strength is nothing without discretion. I could kill and kill until there was nothing left around me and all I would have is a red outfit and a pile of corpses.

I choose to try, even if I risk failure, because the reward is great enough to accept that risk.

And the harpy has shown none of these qualities. It is a murderous bitch that has eaten innocent people. It's weak, alone, and entirely deserving of a righteous smiting. Don't think of it being cruel. She descended on lone travelers with her bird in tow. Turnabout is fair play.

>it's weak, alone
>weak
So what's the harm in trying? I'm only going to get stronger.
>alone
Not if I befriend it.

If the harpy is responsive enough to bargain for the spell, it's responsive enough to try turning it. Worst case scenario, we try it your way. Best case, a life is saved and an ally is made.

What if killing her would bring back one of her victims?

I could kill and kill and end up with a village of safe, good people who never did a thing worth dying over, a fat wife, ten kids, a nice chair in the local tavern, and a batch of happy young recruits training to be the local guard. And no cannibals tending our fields, rapists baking our bread and robber barons sending apology letters. My place in the world could be as safe as my determination and sword hand allows.

I wouldn't know which one it was. And someone would still be dead, and I would face the blame for it. Better to try with what I have, and if it turns bad we can try to roll the dice, with regret and hopes that we do not bring back something worse.

Reward of what? Denying her victims' close ones justice?

It's not bargaining for the spell. It has no tongue. The party is literally going to save a murdering cannibal for no reason.

As for your best case scenario, you forget the enemies you'll make. Any nearby villages will likely be hostile, knowing that you chose to support a murderous monster instead of them. That means they won't be sharing their supplies, which means starving.

But hey, they're in a group, so no saving them. Just kill them and eat them, like your new friend would.

Killing people for their past wrongs would leave the world with very few people. And what is the worth of a judge that only hands out death sentences with no trial?

But an orc is not worth the effort? Take him along you if you're so worried about his society.

The reward of saving a life, a soul, a myriad of living possibilities from cold, impersonal death.

Haa, but this time the dead one would arguably deserve it. Why not take the chance and roll the dice, as you said?

It's not past wrongs. It's last week's wrongs, coupled with their recent attack on you.

I don't see how me saying that I would kill those who did crimes worth dying over means I would kill until the world was without people. Good and honest folk exist already, no need for them to turn on their heel and repent. The value of a judge unafraid to kill those who have earned death is the safety of every last one of those people.

Let the villagers hate me. I won't hate them back. I'm siding with everyone, even if they say otherwise.

And it's not that I wouldn't try to save a group of orcs. It's that I doubt I could save a group of orcs, or even get them to listen to me.

They are worth the effort, and in a similar situation I would. But standing around and trying to talk to an orc as I'm mired in the horde seems suicidal, and my life is valuable as well.

You're not siding with everyone. You're siding with the side that puts out.

The Harpy is a monster through and through. It's committed crimes worthy of death, and has no excuse for it. There is literally no reason to spare it from its deserved fate.

I don't think anyone deserves death, user.

The past can't be changed, even the most recent one. Al I have control of is now and what is soon to be.

Who determines what is worth Death? Would you kill a murderer if you knew he would turn to a life of monkhood a week after you met him? Who are you to decide when misguidedness becomes unforgivable evil?

I'm siding with anyone and everyone who lives, thinks, and breathes. I would save each of those villagers from the brink of death if they needed it, and if they choose to hate me for saving another, so be it. It would be evil to discriminate, so I choose not to.

Interesting, I hadn't considered that angle. Would one be able to be implemented and usable without high level magic?

It's a very big desert, I don't think she and her friend would be able to leave easily without some killing going on, and that's assuming they can get out without dying.

It's interesting you mention the learned behavior thing, because instead of luring with her voice we found this harpy who was using jewelry to lure in unsuspecting victims into a trap. Something to make up for her lack of singing, it seems. Finding a town in the desert that isn't hostile to this creature would be tricky, since it's not unlikely she'd have attacked people or tried to attack people who have gone to live in the nearby towns. Plus, being a desert, it would be difficult to get to any other nearby towns. Even if they were able to accept the harpy, getting her giant bird friend to be accepted as well might be even more difficult because it's not sentient and able to stop being antagonistic as easily (though it might be able to be solved with lots of Animal Handling).

But she's not entering a life of monkhood. She literally tried to kill the party 5 minutes ago.

Shame she doesn't think the same way. She's killed, man. You can play the holier than though card all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that she's snuffed out so many innocent lives. Why would you choose to rate her life above that of her innocent victims?

So the bitch was luring people to her death, and has a murder-bird that only knows how to kill?

She's evil. Smite her ass.

I decree death when the taken has exceeded the value of one's life. Ending a life, save for ending the life of another murderer. Stealing the honor and dignity of another being. Taking hard-earned goods through force or subterfuge to the point a life is forever altered or reduced. All of these crimes are things that cannot be removed. They must be answered for in worth and value. Destroying the culprit prevents any future actions. There is a scale of Justice. And it can tip.

Because I can't bring those victims back, and I am not the one to judge their "innocence".

Right. Eating people tips it pretty fucking far. Without punishment, there is no justice.

Exactly what I was trying to get across.

So, why shouldn't you kill yourself after ending the life of another? What puts you above the system? No one is evil all the time, and no one is good all the time. There is not black and white, only gray.
Perhaps I should kill you for all those you have slaughtered?

And who says that those murderers didn't kill people because they thought their victims were wrong? Who's to say you aren't just perpetuating a cycle?

Death is death. Harpies eat people the same way some people eat dogs. Should dogs kill humans?

ITT: Lawful Good Versus Neutral Good and True Neutral

Perhaps I did earn death for being the tool of judgement and justice, but I doubt it. But I can say that all those I have elected to kill have taken lives in ways much less fairly than I. They've harmed people beyond what death could accomplish. Or they've taken so much that other people have suffered far too unfairly. I sleep well on my pillow. I am above those I punish due to having a well-defined set of laws and rules, morals and credos, and never deviating from them.

Sure, things are grey at times.

But eating people is fucking black. Killing should never be taken lightly, and everything must be taken into consideration when administering the sentence.

Bird-bitch deserves to be staked out and left to die under the sun, but because you seem to be the type of person to woo her with flowers, a quick death will serve as a substitute.

That's fucking idiotic. Dogs are not sentient. People are. Dogs reared as livestock are entirely different from free-thinking humans that very much want to not be eaten by a murderous bird-bitch.

So take her to a court of justice, then. What's your problem with that solution?

>implying every desert has cacti
>implying scorpions are always abundant enough to feed something the size of a small person who uses lots of calories flying
Imagine being the harpy? Your will to live isn't gone. In a "them or you" situation, I cannot fault the harpy for trying to live. If it was proven murder for murders sake, and cannibalism (which it's not, it's more like a human eating chimp in that it toes the line of disgusting, perhaps more so for us who are disturbed by eating human as humans ourselves) for sick thrills of a psychopath, that's a very different thing. Whether it's irredeemably evil is something that is based on it's intentions: you can't redeem something that's stubbornly evil, but we don't know it's intentions as it can't speak. It could just be a chaotic neutral member of it's race even. Without a tongue, we can't hear it's side and judge it properly, but with a tongue it's more dangerous.

I'd restrain it, teach it to write or use some kind of sign language, or find some protection against any magic it has and then heal it, but the creature deserves to be understood before judgement is cast. If it was a situation where the creature was currently attacking someone it'd be different, but if it's been defeated and spared as a prisoner presumably, and you cannot kill something that's yielded to you and then pretend to have any honor or sense of goodness, even if it's an orc. At the same time, it needs to know the weight of it's sins before it can be properly punished for them, otherwise the creature is essentially just being tortured or killed for no reason that it may be aware of: they're a majority chaotic evil race so it's culture wouldn't likely instill a sense of morality into the creature so it may not fully understand. Even if you take it prisoner and eventually judge and execute it, it deserves the chance at redemption that comes with knowing. If they wanted to avoid this kind of thing, they shouldn't have spared it.

Eating people is not wrong from a harpy's perspective. It's wrong from ours, but harpies see humans as a source of food and reproduction in some cases. It's wrong to treat her eating humans as the same thing as a human eating humans. It's wrong for a person to eat a human, but it's not wrong for a harpy to eat a human, only for them to kill a good one. They can eat a corpse.

Nobody suggested it. And it would have to be a court with equal harpy and human representation, if possible. Harpies have different standards of living in comparison to humans.

Assuming the PCs can find a judge, that'll be an adequate solution. While immediate execution would be expedient, efficient, and without the risk of her escaping, that would work.

There are obviously villages nearby, as mentioned earlier. If things are really so desperate, it's possible to just steal food from their stocks to survive.

She's baiting travelers in with gold to kill them.

They still killed people. This is an act that deserves to be punished, regardless of conflicting cultural values.

She killed people to survive. She obviously would have gone for the easier stealing option if they could. Perhaps the villages had archers or fortifications.

She should be rehabilitated and punished through rehabilitation.

It's a life that doesn't deserve saving, as proven by her actions.

We don't know the state of the villages. They could be small farming villages, they could be fortified towns.

As for rehabilitation, as has been said, she doesn't even consider what she's done wrong. She believes that it's perfectly fine for people to die for her meals. That's a helluva lot to overcome. She won't take kindly to prey attempting to force her to take up their ways.

Every life deserves saving. But few get the opportunity.

If it's possible for it to be overcome, it should be overcome.

Murder is premediated. This is manslaughter, if anything.

We do have some leftover leather straps, so this might be a potentially viable option. Though a healer out in the middle of the desert willing to do this might be difficult, especially since it'd be a relatively high level (and thus expensive) spell to my knowledge.

This is actually kind of a logical option. Hmmm.

It came back with what seemed like a full days worth of scavenging for food when we got to it's nest area, and it didn't look like nearly enough for her, let alone for her and her bird friend.

It was premeditated. She lured travelers in with jewelry.