Raiders of Shrieking Peak - Intentional Gender Inversion or Editing Oversight?

[ledurham]

Not really feedback per se, but I was curious if the inclusion of a male harpy was an intentional move to show Pathfinders acceptance of non standard gender identity or simply a matter of no one involved having read the bestiary? Nothing in the adventure calls it out, and there's definitely no indications he's a transgender man, which could have made for a really cool story on why he was kicked out from his clan.

[Githzilla]

Interesting question that made me dig out my Bestiary for the description of a Pathfinder 1st edition Harpy. Vile bird-like women. Looks like the Harpy is getting a change for 2nd edition.

[Themetricsystem]

Make a Harpy Bard, name him Kidd Roc.

[Corwin Icewolf]

I vaguely recall reading a comment from one of the devs that they're converting most women only monsters to bigendered in an attempt to move away from the idea that women are dangerous. I'll see if I can find the quote.

Edit: found it. It was James Jacobs in his ask thread.

James Jacobs wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

But yeah, another question: So dryads and harpies were stated previously to be female only, but then hell's vengeance and one of pathfinder society 2e playtest scenarios introduced male member of both of them. Is paizo planning to avoid single gender races and monsters in the future?

The world is a very different place today than it was a decade ago, and among other things it's become more than apparent that some of the old "traditional" roles played by monsters who were inspired from historical or mythological resources have had some pretty gross and backwards-thinking elements.

Harpies are a good example, since the word "harpy" itself is so associated with misogyny today and likely came into being for similar reasons. The concept of a half bird, half human creature that's evil and lures people to their death is a strong one, and by having there be male and female harpies we're hoping to move away from the idea and implication that "women are dangerous."

There will remain a few creatures that are single gender races—and in most of these cases they'll in fact be single gender races who have an oppositional gender equivalent (such as succubus/incubus, or possibly nymph/satyr), but going forward, if we DO have single-gender creatures, we will be taking pains to make sure that they're not single-gendered specifically due to a fear of that creature's gender—be it female OR male.

Link

[PossibleCabbage]

I mean "there are male harpies, they are just less common" is a vastly preferable explanation for "where do we get new harpies" than the previous one.