Considering a helluva lot of it was borrowed from the Norse too, I vaguely doubt that.

I.... don't know honestly.
It depends, at least partially, on what you define as a drain.

So I've been thinking about the Sidhe, about which I admittedly know very little, and I just want to throw out the thought that an obscure sort of thing might not be the strongest choice for an "iconic" race. Also, if we do settle on jackalfolk for our commons, that's two races in that have never or rarely been done in MTG history. Now, that could potentially work in our favor, but I'm not sold on it.

Just a thought, of course.

Fair enough to that.

What do people feel about Harpy? We could also choose Nightmare potentially maybe. There's also Shade, which I am always a fan of.
Dunno, all in all, it's just stuff worth considering.

Harpy for iconic or characteristic? I could see characteristic. Could be interesting.

The biggest issue with doing them for characteristic is the idea that they all have flying.
There's the further layer of problem arising from (hold on, I just had a thought unrelated to here, but it has to do with harpies) the idea of a monogendered characteristic. I mean, Harpy has an even harder time disassociating itself with the monogendered structure than gorgons do, and you see how hard it is to get people to think of male gorgons.

So Tarkir has houndfolk.
... I am not entirely sure how to feel about this.

Yeah, I thought of that as soon as I saw it. I still like going with a more Anubis-style with out Houndfolk. I don't personally think Tarkir is reason enough to drop them, but, on the other hand, we haven't done much to develop them yet, so if it's not sitting right with you guys, now would be the time to drop them if we're going to.

If anything I see it as further justification for this choice! Now we know there are houndfolk in Magic, after all.