Kyrie

A kyrie mixes hawk and human: long, wiry legs with talons, wings for arms that still end in slender clawed hands, brown feathers on back and wings, soft golden fur on the chest, and a human head with small pale blue or yellow eyes. Taller than a man but hollow-boned, it rarely weighs 100 pounds. Kyrie are nimble fliers with a climb rate of 3. Besides their own speech, 80% know common, which they speak in a clipped, exact way.

Kyrie are peaceable but proud, intolerant of trespass and merciless to aggressors, and none will submit to capture. A claw does 1d6, but they prefer tools. Flying kyrie carry a stone or two the size of a fist to drop on enemies, one per round, for 1d8 per hit, then land and fight with the light stone axe every adult owns (1d6).

They cast as 3rd-level druids and can learn any druid spell of 1st to 3rd level. Common picks include warp wood, charm person or mammal, hold animal, predict weather, animal friendship and invisibility to animals.

Kyrie once circled the world from island to island over decades, guided across open ocean by a magical navigating stone held by their leaders, and so lost their own sense of direction. When minotaurs stole the stone, the kyrie were stranded on the minotaurs' island. They later regained it but stayed anyway, claiming an equal right to the land.

Their aeries are clean nests of twigs in caves on remote peaks or partway up sheer cliffs, with grand views. Each houses up to 3d6 adults, half male and half female, plus 4d6 young. Beyond axes and stockpiled stones they own little, though they collect coins and gems for beauty rather than value.

Minotaurs are their deadly foes. Kyrie raid isolated minotaur mines and caravans for food and weapons, killing without pity, and minotaurs strike back at the aeries. Kyrie eat seeds, fruit and rodents and crave wine and strong drink, which they steal. Their hard eggs are inedible to most creatures, but minotaurs boil the yolks with mutton fat into a thick soup.