Ah, the Piper. Named for their ability to conjure magical effects using the music of woodwind instruments as a focus, a Piper is the result of a Satyr father and an Elven mother. Considered by many a surprisingly rare breed, especially by those who've met a Satyr.
The Piper usually stands no taller then 6 feet and usually the elven heritage is the most obvious. Often they are mistaken for a breed of elf save for 3 qualities, small horns that while too small to be used as weapons are too large to hide, a very strong tendency to be barefoot with no noticeable discomfort even if walking on broken glass, and having much more hair than the normal elf. Male Pipers usually have thick facial hair with thinner hair on their arms and legs while female Pipers are rarely seen with head hair length any less then down to their hips. Coloration of skin and hair usually depends on the mother's breed of elf. Pipers with wood elf mothers tend to have skin color surprisingly human-esque with hair that's no lighter then dark red. Pipers with dark elf mothers tend to have gray skin with white or light grey hair, giving them the perhaps unfair title of Dark Pipers. Either way there's never been any record of a Piper that wasn't physically attractive, and accordingly to rumor they're always "well-endowed" for their respective gender.
Personality-wise Pipers carry a strong like for the simple pleasures in life. Wine, song, dance, and members of the opposite sex. They can think of grander things, but rarely want to. Despite the fact that Pipers with dark elf mothers are often called Dark Pipers, their personalities are largely the same as so called "Light Pipers". Legends say that if a Piper is the result of a Satyr raping an Elf then you truely do get a Dark Piper, a chillingly evil version of the normally carefree Piper- but either this is an incredibly rare event or this is a fairy tale even among fairies. Overall it seems a Piper's life ambition would be to find the perfect party and to get laid in strage places.
One final note about the fertility of Satyrs and Pipers. Satyrs were once worshiped as minor gods of male fertility, but somewhere along the way discovered a herbal mixture that prevents pregnancy if ingested. As a result while a Satyr could in theory impregnate anything with a vagina, the mixture keeps the actual number of bastard children a Satyr will have to a number countable on one hand. The mixture has a perfect record of success with all races except other fey, elves, and halflings- and even in these cases it's still better then 95% success. Usually a resulting child means the Satyr screwed up in creating the herbal mixture.
Pipers on the other hand tend to be largely sterile. Some say this makes them worse then their fathers when it comes to sexual promiscuity, as a Satyr has to at least think to bring some herbal blends to have no consequences for their actions. Without magical aid, Female Pipers can only become pregnant from Satyrs and Male Pipers can only impregnate Nymphs. It usually doesn't take much magical aid mind you, as stories abound of male Pipers accidentally getting the magical aid needed from Druidic magical objects and fathering scores of children before they figure out what's going on. If this happens, the child will be the same race as the non-Piper parent. |