Lantern Harpy lore
Lantern Harpies are Akin to yokai or spiritual creatures with a large range in abilities and personalities though all are a bit like dream eater types. Lantern Harpies are fully sentient but there are different species that are less sapient. These species are essentially akin to what very smart lemurs or monkeys are to humans, similar in evolution but different in terms of ability and rationality. Lesser harpies like these are called Candle Harpies and often resemble a bird but with open flames instead of using tools to protect their flames unlike Lantern Harpies.
There are domesticated candle harpies which are bred from wild Candle Harpies. Lantern Harpies view candle harpies as animals that are distantly related as evolutionary offshoots or ancestors.
Lantern Harpies are Creatures that can fly in any Storm, physical and non physical, be it stormy seas or stormy thoughts, to retrieve the lost individual or group be they lost travelers or people lost in worry. They fuel their special lanterns with fear and nightmares and do this by gathering them from targets. They do this by helping whoever is going through it, by personally involving themselves they are able to gather that stress and fear. Their lanterns run on nightmares and fear so they go out of their way to find those who are lost or in trouble to guide them with their lamps. They can fly into nonphysical places as well to navigate nightmares or just to help someone lost in thoughts or worries. They can only harvest fear and nightmares if they personally go to retrieve it and alleviate it. Personal involvement and being perceived to be involved draws karma and ties fates together allowing them to harvest fear and nightmares. Harvesting something incorporeal means having to swap it with the opposite, to harvest chaos one must get rid of it, to harvest fear one must swap it with relief or something else. All have preferred lantern styles and preferred headgear in their favorite colors. In addition to this, all have lantern Harpies have preferred types of fear and scenarios to navigate, some excel at picking through psyche of troubled individuals or harvesting nightmares from sleeping people and others thrive at finding lost hikers or ships. While All lantern harpies can fly into dreams, navigate mental spaces to retrieve fears and pick at traumas and navigate treacherous spaces, many have their own preferences and specialities and will ignore some fears and scenarios if it's not their preference or not their expertise. Candle Harpies are less picky than lantern harpies though at the cost of being far more invasive when helping or diving into the mind and often a touch confused and misguided when helping others. A candle harpy is able to identify a troubled individual but how likely they are able to comprehend the trouble a person is going through and help them is another matter, often candle harpies will help fellow animals and assuage their worries over a more complex individual. Most harpies, both candle and lantern harpies, don't like sharing targets as fear and stress will flow equally to all parties that are perceived to help or that get involved so it's easy for lantern Harpies to mooch off each other. Their flame is closely related to their own health and soul but rather than directly representing their soul, it's more accurate to compare their lantern flame to their stomach and mouth. It's how they fuel themselves, eat nightmares and fear, how they power themselves and ingest things and even how they defend themselves. The flame, while closely tied to their health, does not entirely nor accurately indicate their health status. The lantern flame is more like their stomach, an indication of their metabolism and energy. Technically, it does not NEED a lantern to contain the flame as it's incorporeal and connected to them and it's not an ordinary flame. Rather The lantern itself is both decorative and used to protect the flame.
Old images of lantern harpies
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Only one is named and that's the curly green one Verden Avery who is a fully mature harpy but considered incomplete as he has yet to settle on a headgear and proper lantern, only holding a basic wire cage for his flame. Lantern Harpies must have either a full decorated full protected lamp or headgear to be considered a full fledged lantern harpy regardless of physical maturity as having a fully decorated protective lantern and/or headgear indicates they are able to not just survive but also thrive and secure material to better themselves and protect their amenities while providing for themselves. Having both fully decorated headgear and lamp is a sign of great prestige and skill.
Lantern Harpies live for as long as they can keep their flame lit and fed, some die young while trying to navigate storms or nightmares too powerful for them or are unable to fend for themselves and secure fears as a meal and some live for centuries. They initially age at about the same rate as a human before reaching physical maturity or their physical prime weight and size. Then from there they must maintain their flame to maintain that physical body. Injuries, from incident or age, can be healed by consuming fear and nightmares or traumas but those injuries can affect their ability to safely navigate minds, dreams and storms so if their injury or physical atrophying/decay is too great they will be unable to get enough to overcome these injuries and have to stick to things they can safely tackle. Many more aged or physically disabled lantern harpies are the result of incidents or being unable to harvest enough fear and stress. Those who are unable to hunt individually ban together to equally harvest nightmares and fears and often work alongside other races such as humans, often within hospitals or ailing communities, for easy food and take shifts to bring back food to flock members who are resting.