I played a kenku rogue and I loved it. I don’t think that the race is for everyone but I think that creative role players who can handle working within the limits can have a really fun time. I treated my kenku kind of like a very intelligent raccoon. He was out to survive and gather nice things. Being with his party offered him protection so that motivated him to cooperate with and support them. His inability to think up things on his own made for some great roleplay. Like you guys mentioned, I had him communicate by repeating words and sounds. I have some acting ability so I would mix up my tone and inflections to make it sound like it was from multiple people. Great fun! I enjoy the channel guys! I also make D&D content if you’d like to check it out. :)
I have a player that plays a Kenku Bard (which I find hilarious) and he is pretty keen on playing it. The way he learns new spells is by having another party member who is also a bard of the same collage first show it to him. Like he finds out about a spell and shows the other bard to do it for him first. Also all his songs are basically just an amalgamation of all the songs he has heard before. And as for the RP part, he traveled across the lands so he has a bunch of different voices in his vocal playlist
In my own homebrew setting I keep the kenku's eye for detail and inability to speak unless it's through mimicry, but take out the inability to have original thoughts. They're just weird bird people who have problems communicating, but can plan and improvise like anyone else. Keeps the initial appeal of why a player might want to RP one without having to deal with all the bullshit that makes no sense.
I am absolutely loving my Kenku Forge Cleric. Creating weapons from other races that my Kenku has seen in the past. He always carrys around a tiny forge hammer that he uses to buff up people's AC. It's a whole lot of fun. Though something that stuck me is the realism of a bird in chainmail armor. Despite that, I think a fully chainmail kenku with like a metal plague doctor mask is really cool and I actually think it's fun using mimicry. Lots of creative situations you can use it with.
I have a kenku gunslinger (bless Matt Mercer) named Trigger! She was the apprentice to a Dwarf gunsmith, who specifically wanted a Kenku apprentice because they "learned the best" lol She's a gem, absolutely hilarious. We have the "curse" play out in a cool way, too- she *starts* to have the inkling of something creative (i.e. DM shakes his head to let me know I'm toeing the line), and then stops talking and stares into space for a moment or two, then goes back to doing whatever. Kinda like a hard reset. I don't often toe the line, but it's a great way for my DM and I to communicate that line.
My players have an NPC kenku cook on their pirate ship named Bubbles. He unerringly makes the same dishes he was taught by his father, who was taught by his father, etc. Eventually, the PCs may discover what a skilled assassin Bubbles also is.
Wisdom is also attention to detail (e.g. as Perception) and experience (they literally record every sound and thing they see created), which they are good at. probably hence that bonus. Not sure if mentioned before.
Starting a bard Kenku named hags cackle tomorrow, she left her flock wondered to the sound of a hags harp. the hag eventually gives her part of her own creativity and from their she will wonder into the cities live on the rooftops of taverns listening with a raven companion who has a broken wing. Works as a messenger for the theives guild. Seeks out the ability to fly above all wants her own voice.
One of my players plays a kenku. What he does is has a list of song lyrics, movie quotes, and poetic phrases and usually picks from that when speaking and not mimicking the other person. As for their lack of creativity, we through that out. We tried it, but it wasn't fun for him. What was fun was the interesting challenge of getting his ideas across , especially because his character has visions of the future, so sometimes I just tell him what will happen before a session and he tries to warn the party, but they never get it.
So with them not being able to improvise it'd be interesting to play them like a more realistic robot with machine learning that requires direct input and might provide funny RP opportunities of following instructions without context... It seems like it would take a very specific type of party to handle this, but could be a lot of fun.
The lack of creativity tweaks my brain. How can a kenku string together phrases or words they've heard together to convey an idea if they have no ability to come up with new ideas? Creativity is kinda required to take old words and express different ideas than the word originally expressed.
I play a Kenku rogue, I had made an entire setup for them, life, backstory, flaws, ideals, ect... I love playing as her and I actually turned into the life of the group because of how fun and creepy my little bird could be. The primary thing that makes it hard to RP as a Kenku is the lack of speech by normal means. Though the funnest thing is when trying to make a sentance verbally in some way, she ends up just using words in different voices that she has heard before taking around thirty or so seconds to say it, but it comes out hilariously creepy to whoever hears it since she is also a three foot tall bird that is slightly insane. We used a small application to get into the campaign and my DM loved it, here is what I wrote. Character name: Ringing Character race/class/gender: Kenku, Rogue, Female Current character alignment: Chaotic Neutral Character Personality: Shy and Introverted, Ringing has a tendency to make various noises that happen in a blacksmith shop when startled, embarrassed, or when frustrated and often the sounds replace when normal speaking beings would be cursing. She tends to have a drinking problem and a gambling problem. Character Backstory: Ringing was the name given to her by her most fitting and well done career as a artisan in a small village secluded in a forest with some other Kenku and an occasional traveler passing through. When the opportunity arose from a traveling merchant, she was offered a dictionary so that she could write her thoughts instead of needing to copy phrases and words from others as suggested by the merchant, she bought the dictionary to allow her to do just that to easily replace a very difficult way of communicating via noises and small phrases with written words on paper. Though she holds to a single ideal and repeats it when someone questions her reasons for doing anything and says it to them in the voice of a deep toned paladin that had passed through her shop once, "No one is completely innocent." She now wanders around looking for work after all of the villagers of her home started to move away from the secluded area and out into towns and castles for more fitting and better paying jobs. She can often times be found in a pub or inn, but occasionally can be found asking for a job in a blacksmith's shop, tailor's shop, or occasionally producing copies of books for a merchant of some kind. (Quick note: my Kenku is just at the first adulthood age being 12 years old.)
I have Kenku that are in the service of the Raven Queen. She returned their creativity too them to make them better servants, and those who serve her well earn their wings back. It's kinda like a clan or bloodline thing, and if the Kenku fails the Raven Queen too often or defies her, they lose their creativity and become regular Kenku again
Im currently playing a Kenku and love it! She is a great old warlock which helps in getting around the language barrier using the telepathic ability you get.
First idea that comes to mind for Kenku character is Great Old One warlock, so you can use the Awakened Mind to communicate telepathically and get around the speech impediment.
I'm making a Kenku for an upcoming campaign. I think the description of them is a bit too rigid. Volo's guide to monsters says they have had their spark of creativity removed. However, they retain instincts and impulses and can exist without a leader. Many of them try to undo their curse as well, searching for hours upon hours through ruins and texts trying to find anything that could restore them. They are still capable of thought, just not creative thought. Where you draw the line is between you and the DM. That said, they are difficult to roleplay but I look forward to the challenge and making it interesting.
I'm making a kenku shadow sorcerer with subtle spell to cast things I haven't seen yet. His name will be dying scream. He will have a very dark back story and be a darker heavier character. If you want I'll keep you posted.
Ditch the thing about creativity and it's fine. Even Perkins has said they could be classes like bard. Which require a large amount of it with spell creation.
It was for a very short adventure and it was very funny I had fun for the most part. He was a ranger who basically just watched the forest for ambushes and was more of an alarm than anything else
The Wisdom bonus is because of their birdlike vision. The are visually "alert" to small details ahead of them like shadows etc. Mentally it makes no sense in relation to the background but biologically it works in relation to perception.
I played a Kenku rogue in a one-shot with a few friends. I, like some others it seems, made a playlist on my phone. I made mine in a music editing app, so I could also record the other players and use earbuds and trim the audio to key words/phrases on the go. Overall, the editing part was a lot of work, which could have been delegated to after-session stuff had this not been a one-shot. Still, I feel like the method I used could have been streamlined and simplified, thus making the experience more engaging for everyone else and just easier for me. I also ended up with far more sound bytes than I ended up using (especially considering the length of the game). I'd have to say the atmosphere set by the other players played a big role in my enjoyment of it too. Had they been less supportive of the little bird that could, or a little more critical of my choice in race (as they justifiably could have been), I feel like I could have come out of that campaign feeling completely different about the race's potential as a PC. So, if you're planning a Kenku as a PC, know the lengths you need to go to, and make sure you're playing it with the right crowd.
I'm deploying Kenku as minions for an NPC tomorrow in my game. I was looking for additional discussion about them and found your channel. As for running as a PC I would get a library of sounds and sound effects queued up and use them to talk in session. I would say nothing the whole session. I think this could be a one off character in the future but not an on going character.
Currently in the process of preparing a Kenku Druid from the Circle of the Moon. Kind of basing him around esoteric studies and traditions, he might pick up on ancient principles for mental transformation, as well as physical transformation later as he gains levels. Eventually, he will learn the way to fly naturally as a bird, and try to make a following, or flock, of other Kenku who wish to learn the ways of mental transmutation. I'm excited for this one. I hope he remains.
I played a Kenku Ranger, Much like other players who have. For Like, general stuff, It notes that people can make checks to see if you're making an immitation. So it's possible to be incredibly lazy, and just say when he speaks, you say things other party members have said, and you 'don't put effort into a deception roll' so you automatically fail purposefully to 'imitate' a voice, allowing you to speak with out having to clip sound bites. As for the 'tactics and training and fighting' I have interpreted it to mean that the kenku, instinctual can fight, But they can't create works of art or other crafts. I usually say if someone presses me on it, 'he shot this because he knows the process of shooting things' and if I shoot something out of the ordinary or kind of an 'idea' I excuse it with 'Saw problem, used logic to create an exit'. Because they aren't creative, doesn't mean they can't be logical.
An idea I have to roleplay a kenku is that they could have been raised by some kind of scholar and they were read a TON of books, when a situations requires a solution, they recite the books title, page, and line and say what the book said as a solution. This would be a good backstory for a wizard. For a parallel, think Ella the harpy from the heros of Olympus series.
I'm very inspired by the idea of a Kenku Wereraven, if that strain of Lycanthropy were to breach the boundaries of Barovia. Edit: better yet, if you're the Lycanthrope, leverage the "curse" against a flock of the flightless fools, you can get the motivation for your assembly line! Reward the highest output birdo by giving them their flight.
Personally I love playing a kenku, but me and my dm both agree that having no unique thought is just a bit overboard. It’s already a lot for a player to Rp speaking as a kenku.
The only Kenku that I have played was a Kenku warlock that, as a part of his pact, gained the ability to speak and think on his own. This was mainly because the DM thought it would be interesting and weird.
The Creativity part is really interesting but not practical. I'd say they're a blank slate but have a hard time to improvise but do end up combining skills together. And imagine a homebrew text to speech spell for the Kenku to write in and learn to mimic for all the phrases they need!
Kenku makes a warlock pact to get all of wings, speech and creativity back for himself. That would make RP much easier and still leave him with some really cool natural abilities.
I played a Kenku monk for a run through The Tomb of Horrors. His name was the sound of wind rustling leaves. My DM said "woooosh" every time. It got old quickly. I couldn't imagine doing a full campaign with one. To me character growth (beyond level) is very important and with Kenku it is inherently impossible.
many takes ive seen on the lack of creativity is that they dedicate themselves to training and studying to the extreme, along with practicing multiple possible outcomes to situations to be able to mimic later. a neat way to deal with it in a party would to spend downtime either sparring or studying with another member of the party, or even that the kenku just sits and listens in order to memorize more words or phrases
Im planning on making a Kenku Rogue (Thief archetype) for my Gaming Club, they're name will be Clink and they were a scribe who was given the side role of a thief by their 'employer'.
This is too funny. i was in a party with someone playing a kenku... after listening to this he played that character waaaaaay wrong.. i haven't laughed this hard in a while... thanks guys
I played a Kenku who could only use mimicry, so everything he said was song lyrics. Think Bumblebee. A lot of research, but it was worth it, very fun, and funny, in practice.
I actually love my kenku. They're a tragic race, and mine is an undying warlock. (He's young, so he doesnt get that his patron is playing him.) The party seems to like him, and I know its all mimicry, but I tend to do it in his own "accent" so I don't have to try and mimic actual players. He's a little walking tragedy, and Im truely in love with him as a character.
I played a Kenku Artificer and just constantly switched which voice I would do for her when speaking in character. I also enjoy making mouth noises, so that might have been part of why I enjoyed playing it.
So the Wisdom thing is actually probably an attempt to tie Kenku with one of their notable folklore inspirations. Kenku are roughly based on a creature from Japanese Folklore called a Tengu who are often depicted as a mix of crow and human (or a human with crow wings and a very long nose, this emoji 👺 is actually a Tengu Mask) and they were notable for dressing like Buddhist Monks who live in the mountains of Japan and were master material artists and fighters, so the ability scores for Kenku are meant to push you towards playing a Kenku Monk since that’s their closest folklore archetype.
My backup charavhter is a. Ascendant dragon monk (UA testing) with amnesia. I feel like a background like that can work interestingly with a kenku player. Soon she'll be able to sprout dtagon wings when dashing. I can imagine lots of kenkus being monos just for more safely falling from heights, lol.
I played a one shot and we randomly rolled for race and class and I got a Kenku wizard. So I made him a necromancy wizard that used to be the pet/assistant of another necromancy wizard which is how he learned all the spells and what to do In combat situations. I took the telepathy feat so he could communicate with the rest of the party when he wanted to, but a lot of the time would just squark and say some random sentence he had heard. Actually was a really fun character to play so I have kept him in case I want to play him again. His name is Zazu obviously.
I kind of grok how Kenku can do things without any creativity or original thoughts, because it seems like their minds all run on splines. www.lunalindsey.com/2013/10/splines-theory-spoons-metaphor-for.html I imagine a Kenku's brain kind of working like a huge stack of filing cards. Any and all data that comes in is compared against the existing filing cards. If there is a matching card, a kenku can follow the existing instructions; if not, a new card is created and filed. Sometimes an existing card can be updated with new information. What does *not* happen is two cards realising "hey, our information could be relevant to each other!" and spontaneously combining to create a new card with information or ideas that have not come from an external source. Also they communicate solely through echolalia. Basically all kenku are my autistic bird children, fight me.
Danielle Clarke do you think being autistic IRL would help to play a kenku character? Also, could it concievably be an adventure motivation to want to have creativity and flight and voices and ect again?
It could do, although not all autistic people process information the same way, so it'd depend on the individual and whether they think they can apply their own experiences to that style of play. I have had a campaign idea in mind for a while where the party goes and fixes the injustices inflicted upon mortals by the gods' shenanigans, including removing the kenkus' curse and tearing down the Wall of the Faithless, so I think it could work as a character motivation, but in that case I'd probably avoid leaning too heavily on the autism parallels because that starts getting into uncomfortable eugenicist rhetoric about how they can never be happy without a cure for their "disease" and the analogy starts to break down. There's also the question of what your Kenku, and Kenku in general, would act like if/when the curse is broken. If they all just start acting like "normal" people, completely verbose and good at improvising and all those other things, then your original character has effectively been killed off and replaced by a total stranger (which is another potentially uncomfortable autism parallel; a lot of parents of autistic kids are sure that "their real child is in there somewhere", and would happily 'cure' their kid to make them 'normal', i.e. completely wipe their brain and rewire it from the ground up so their kid is a completely different person). Kenku individuals and society have developed to deal with these forms of communication and cognitive methods, so even if they suddenly have these magically-imposed mental blocks removed, they're unlikely to be able to use them intuitively or reliably without a hell of a lot of trial-and-error, and they're probably likely to rely on the forms of communication and action-planning that they're used to for a long time, especially in high-stress situations.
Danielle Clarke Oh, I don't mean to imply that autism is the same as the kenku curse at all, only that as an autistic person (Aspergers, I.E. high functioning) I might have an advantage in playing and understanding a kenku character. As for how the kenku would play after the curse is lifted, I actually have had an experience in my life that is kind of similar. I imagine it wouldn't so much be like the kenku has become a new person, but more like the kenku has "woken up", like a part of them was locked away and now they can see and feel it. This means that becoming accustom to their newly found creativity would be a slow and exploritory proccess for the kenku, like suddenly this new track of personal growth has opened for them, and like suddenly their hands have been unbound. As for why the kenku PC wants to lift the curse as their primary objective, I had this thought that perhaps the kenku came from a tribe that passed down the memory of their fall in the form of a spoken history or something, thus providing a direct motivation and some knowledge of kenku history and how they once were.
Im also plan to use a soundboard,but multiple and they're like jojo or arnold phrases XD though my character was originally a human but was body switched
I’m a new DnD player and I plan on playing a kenku. I know it can kill my team really quickly but my team is overpowered so I told my DM that I can create a character made to hinder the party and raise the challenge level for them 😊
Hey guys! Wanted to pop in on my main account to say two things. First that you may find interesting, Creativity correlates pretty strongly with IQ along with trait Openness (big 5). Second, I found the pot example to be really thought provoking! I'd say replicating the pot isn't creativity per say; it's reiterating. Creativity is defined as making new things strictly speaking, reforming the pot is a matter of manufacture. That said your kenku may not have the motor skills to iterate on a specific process without proficiency in a relevant skill. Arcana for magic items, mason's tools for the aforementioned pot, etc. Thanks for the video, totally going to introduce a kenku npc for some intrigue and espionage!
I know the gm shouldn’t be a part of a party but if the group or gym really insist the gm could be a mute kenku. Then the party tells him what the plan is and so on, all he does is try to do as the party says.
Don't think the person that invented 'Kenku' really thought that class all the way thru. AKA = Monster Food. Kenku's as a pc can get your party killed... Quickly
i'll be playing a kenku bard starting this week... and I plan on being fairly loose with the creativity issue... I think my bard will act off of instinct rather than thought. he'll be able to mimic songs he's heard before... and when he learns new songs, I imagine he'll be just practicing scales and playing chords in the same old way it's always been done by others... Twenty One Pilots has a song and the lyrics go, "I wish I found some chords in an order that is new" and that's kinda how I think my bard will be... no big new ideas, just the same old chords in the same orders...
I play a kenku lore bard with skilled feat, I play him like a master of disguise, he is good at everything. My inability to speak common doesn't handicap because the paladin in our party speaks auran.
So, I don’t think I would personally play a Kenku, but I could see it being pretty doable for a support/ intel gathering character. As far as language this is how I as a DM would allow it to be worked around as well as here’s my opinion as a player. Since they live to be about 60, this Kenku could have been born in or near somewhere scholarly, this being around tons of books, and we as humans learn language the same way of starting small, then learning what order to put the words in and then learn bigger words and how to use them. So.... if this Kenku grew up watching all these people coming and going from say, a library and more or less was reading over everyone’s shoulder got to where his “mimicry” has grown such a large vocabulary (for lack of a better word) that he’s memorized basic sentence structure through repetition he could then use basic speech, so if he was speaking it would be a combination of sounds, head movements, and talking like Yoda, where it’s broken sentences that convey a general message. And the other players may or may not understand him, and may or may not have to make a check to see if the Kenku could say what he actually meant out of character.
I also feel like Kenku would be a good support via distraction, like making his sounds to distract a guard in the under-dark so the guard looks away giving a PC laying in wait to get attack of opportunity so forth and so on
Honestly, to me the Kenku sounds like certain types of people in the autism spectrum that don't process language neurotypically and can do things like make amazingly lifelike sculptures and paintings, but only of certain things they have seen that their brain has latched onto... I'm not sure what to do with that, but it's interesting to me in terms of exploring and trying to better understand what life is like got someone with that type of brain processing...
The Kenku lack of creativity can be worked with if you account for how everything is inspired by everything else. VGtM says they can't improvise or alter plans, but Kenku can repurpose sounds and words to communicate. Is that not altering, if not in function? A "wise master sets multiple plans in motion at once" which seems like subtly changing plans by nature of proximity. It might be better to just ignore that curse, but their replicating items ability mirrors their replicating sounds ability. And they freaking communicate with sounds from different contexts. That's like how people hear/see memes, think they're stupid-funny, use them for a laugh in a situation that calls for them, then uses it unironically in more situations. That's subtly innovative, no matter how "Hopeless Plagiarists" the book or the curse says Kenku are! They probably low-key innovate by accident all the time! All that said, I rp Kenku by leaning heavily into the characters that inspired them (Harvey Birdman, Bird Person, etc.) And they typically speak in tv/movie/song quotes, like a YTP
I'm trying to figure out an rp reason why a Kenku could have lost its incapacity for creativity - I really like the concept of them, but from a gameplay pov I'd like be able to make at least basic off-the-cuff decisions without limiting myself to "oh but a normal Kenku couldn't do that". Everything else they can do seems so unique and interesting to play
As an autistic person who struggles to communicate, and often feels like I'm just repeating others, and feels kinda cursed, and struggles to adjust when things go wrong quickly, I wanna play a kenku! Also, yeah deception and wisdom doesn't make much sense, id rather have it be investigation due to crows amazing eyesight, and intelligence. Maybe have kenu also be specifically artistically and socially not creative but very good with puzzles machines and traps.
I view kenku’s lack of unique thought as inability to think outside of the box. They can use existing information, but can’t create hypothesis’s or improve on designs or learn how to fix something that failed without being shown. Only know how it failed, but not how to change it.
I play a Kenku Rogue. Her Father got rid of the Kenku Curse (and with his children). That way she's pretty playable. She still doesn't have her Voice or Wings back, but thanks to creativity she can overcome this. I enjoy playing her a lot!
From what i see of the 3.5 monster manual 3, Kenku have no restriction on speaking or creativity. To me, i find these new additions to kenku with 5e as some hamfisted attempt to make them more interesting.
I played a kenku rogue and I loved it. I don’t think that the race is for everyone but I think that creative role players who can handle working within the limits can have a really fun time.
I treated my kenku kind of like a very intelligent raccoon. He was out to survive and gather nice things. Being with his party offered him protection so that motivated him to cooperate with and support them. His inability to think up things on his own made for some great roleplay.
Like you guys mentioned, I had him communicate by repeating words and sounds. I have some acting ability so I would mix up my tone and inflections to make it sound like it was from multiple people. Great fun!
I enjoy the channel guys! I also make D&D content if you’d like to check it out. :)
I have a player that plays a Kenku Bard (which I find hilarious) and he is pretty keen on playing it. The way he learns new spells is by having another party member who is also a bard of the same collage first show it to him. Like he finds out about a spell and shows the other bard to do it for him first. Also all his songs are basically just an amalgamation of all the songs he has heard before. And as for the RP part, he traveled across the lands so he has a bunch of different voices in his vocal playlist
I plan to play a kenku using a sound board app
+LJ Griggs I love this
That’s a grand idea.
Panda King did you find a good app? How did it work out?
what soundboard did you use?
In my own homebrew setting I keep the kenku's eye for detail and inability to speak unless it's through mimicry, but take out the inability to have original thoughts. They're just weird bird people who have problems communicating, but can plan and improvise like anyone else. Keeps the initial appeal of why a player might want to RP one without having to deal with all the bullshit that makes no sense.
the kenku is a living embodiment of the newspaper clipping that serial killers use
I am absolutely loving my Kenku Forge Cleric. Creating weapons from other races that my Kenku has seen in the past. He always carrys around a tiny forge hammer that he uses to buff up people's AC. It's a whole lot of fun. Though something that stuck me is the realism of a bird in chainmail armor. Despite that, I think a fully chainmail kenku with like a metal plague doctor mask is really cool and I actually think it's fun using mimicry. Lots of creative situations you can use it with.
I have a kenku gunslinger (bless Matt Mercer) named Trigger! She was the apprentice to a Dwarf gunsmith, who specifically wanted a Kenku apprentice because they "learned the best" lol
She's a gem, absolutely hilarious. We have the "curse" play out in a cool way, too- she *starts* to have the inkling of something creative (i.e. DM shakes his head to let me know I'm toeing the line), and then stops talking and stares into space for a moment or two, then goes back to doing whatever. Kinda like a hard reset. I don't often toe the line, but it's a great way for my DM and I to communicate that line.
My players have an NPC kenku cook on their pirate ship named Bubbles.
He unerringly makes the same dishes he was taught by his father, who was taught by his father, etc.
Eventually, the PCs may discover what a skilled assassin Bubbles also is.
Wisdom is also attention to detail (e.g. as Perception) and experience (they literally record every sound and thing they see created), which they are good at. probably hence that bonus. Not sure if mentioned before.
Their wisdom is tied to their perception, that attention to detail you mentioned.
Starting a bard Kenku named hags cackle tomorrow, she left her flock wondered to the sound of a hags harp. the hag eventually gives her part of her own creativity and from their she will wonder into the cities live on the rooftops of taverns listening with a raven companion who has a broken wing. Works as a messenger for the theives guild. Seeks out the ability to fly above all wants her own voice.
One of my players plays a kenku. What he does is has a list of song lyrics, movie quotes, and poetic phrases and usually picks from that when speaking and not mimicking the other person. As for their lack of creativity, we through that out. We tried it, but it wasn't fun for him. What was fun was the interesting challenge of getting his ideas across , especially because his character has visions of the future, so sometimes I just tell him what will happen before a session and he tries to warn the party, but they never get it.
Glad to see you guys cover em 😁 tied for my favourite race next to tieflings easily
So in terms of conversation they’re Bumblebee from the Michael Bay Transformers movies
Yup
So with them not being able to improvise it'd be interesting to play them like a more realistic robot with machine learning that requires direct input and might provide funny RP opportunities of following instructions without context... It seems like it would take a very specific type of party to handle this, but could be a lot of fun.
The lack of creativity tweaks my brain. How can a kenku string together phrases or words they've heard together to convey an idea if they have no ability to come up with new ideas? Creativity is kinda required to take old words and express different ideas than the word originally expressed.
I play a Kenku rogue, I had made an entire setup for them, life, backstory, flaws, ideals, ect... I love playing as her and I actually turned into the life of the group because of how fun and creepy my little bird could be. The primary thing that makes it hard to RP as a Kenku is the lack of speech by normal means. Though the funnest thing is when trying to make a sentance verbally in some way, she ends up just using words in different voices that she has heard before taking around thirty or so seconds to say it, but it comes out hilariously creepy to whoever hears it since she is also a three foot tall bird that is slightly insane.
We used a small application to get into the campaign and my DM loved it, here is what I wrote.
Character name: Ringing
Character race/class/gender: Kenku, Rogue, Female
Current character alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Character Personality: Shy and Introverted, Ringing has a tendency to make various noises that happen in a blacksmith shop when startled, embarrassed, or when frustrated and often the sounds replace when normal speaking beings would be cursing. She tends to have a drinking problem and a gambling problem.
Character Backstory: Ringing was the name given to her by her most fitting and well done career as a artisan in a small village secluded in a forest with some other Kenku and an occasional traveler passing through. When the opportunity arose from a traveling merchant, she was offered a dictionary so that she could write her thoughts instead of needing to copy phrases and words from others as suggested by the merchant, she bought the dictionary to allow her to do just that to easily replace a very difficult way of communicating via noises and small phrases with written words on paper. Though she holds to a single ideal and repeats it when someone questions her reasons for doing anything and says it to them in the voice of a deep toned paladin that had passed through her shop once, "No one is completely innocent." She now wanders around looking for work after all of the villagers of her home started to move away from the secluded area and out into towns and castles for more fitting and better paying jobs. She can often times be found in a pub or inn, but occasionally can be found asking for a job in a blacksmith's shop, tailor's shop, or occasionally producing copies of books for a merchant of some kind.
(Quick note: my Kenku is just at the first adulthood age being 12 years old.)
I have Kenku that are in the service of the Raven Queen. She returned their creativity too them to make them better servants, and those who serve her well earn their wings back. It's kinda like a clan or bloodline thing, and if the Kenku fails the Raven Queen too often or defies her, they lose their creativity and become regular Kenku again
a telepathic Kenku that has grasped language through reading the thoughts of others
So essentially Kenku are anthropomorphic mockingbirds, which can mimic sounds of various things. That's actually a pretty cool idea.
Im currently playing a Kenku and love it! She is a great old warlock which helps in getting around the language barrier using the telepathic ability you get.
First idea that comes to mind for Kenku character is Great Old One warlock, so you can use the Awakened Mind to communicate telepathically and get around the speech impediment.
I'm making a Kenku for an upcoming campaign. I think the description of them is a bit too rigid. Volo's guide to monsters says they have had their spark of creativity removed. However, they retain instincts and impulses and can exist without a leader. Many of them try to undo their curse as well, searching for hours upon hours through ruins and texts trying to find anything that could restore them. They are still capable of thought, just not creative thought. Where you draw the line is between you and the DM. That said, they are difficult to roleplay but I look forward to the challenge and making it interesting.
Such CUTIES! Look at you Brian with your professional headset! Great Job Boys! Love Mama :)
I'm making a kenku shadow sorcerer with subtle spell to cast things I haven't seen yet. His name will be dying scream. He will have a very dark back story and be a darker heavier character. If you want I'll keep you posted.
A kenku would be a brilliant sidekick character in a fantasy film for comedic relief and you could easily add touching moments.
Man going way back and watching this, The audio got so much better later
Ditch the thing about creativity and it's fine. Even Perkins has said they could be classes like bard. Which require a large amount of it with spell creation.
It was for a very short adventure and it was very funny I had fun for the most part. He was a ranger who basically just watched the forest for ambushes and was more of an alarm than anything else
The Wisdom bonus is because of their birdlike vision. The are visually "alert" to small details ahead of them like shadows etc. Mentally it makes no sense in relation to the background but biologically it works in relation to perception.
I played a Kenku rogue in a one-shot with a few friends. I, like some others it seems, made a playlist on my phone. I made mine in a music editing app, so I could also record the other players and use earbuds and trim the audio to key words/phrases on the go.
Overall, the editing part was a lot of work, which could have been delegated to after-session stuff had this not been a one-shot. Still, I feel like the method I used could have been streamlined and simplified, thus making the experience more engaging for everyone else and just easier for me. I also ended up with far more sound bytes than I ended up using (especially considering the length of the game).
I'd have to say the atmosphere set by the other players played a big role in my enjoyment of it too. Had they been less supportive of the little bird that could, or a little more critical of my choice in race (as they justifiably could have been), I feel like I could have come out of that campaign feeling completely different about the race's potential as a PC. So, if you're planning a Kenku as a PC, know the lengths you need to go to, and make sure you're playing it with the right crowd.
I'm deploying Kenku as minions for an NPC tomorrow in my game. I was looking for additional discussion about them and found your channel.
As for running as a PC I would get a library of sounds and sound effects queued up and use them to talk in session. I would say nothing the whole session. I think this could be a one off character in the future but not an on going character.
Kenku wooo my favorite race along with the tabaxi
You could get a character to say all the different sylobols and then the kenku can create words from that
I have a player with Kenku character, Mu, who just learned gibbering from fighting a gibbering mouther - so that's pretty sweet.
Currently in the process of preparing a Kenku Druid from the Circle of the Moon. Kind of basing him around esoteric studies and traditions, he might pick up on ancient principles for mental transformation, as well as physical transformation later as he gains levels. Eventually, he will learn the way to fly naturally as a bird, and try to make a following, or flock, of other Kenku who wish to learn the ways of mental transmutation.
I'm excited for this one. I hope he remains.
I played a Kenku Ranger, Much like other players who have. For Like, general stuff, It notes that people can make checks to see if you're making an immitation. So it's possible to be incredibly lazy, and just say when he speaks, you say things other party members have said, and you 'don't put effort into a deception roll' so you automatically fail purposefully to 'imitate' a voice, allowing you to speak with out having to clip sound bites.
As for the 'tactics and training and fighting' I have interpreted it to mean that the kenku, instinctual can fight, But they can't create works of art or other crafts. I usually say if someone presses me on it, 'he shot this because he knows the process of shooting things' and if I shoot something out of the ordinary or kind of an 'idea' I excuse it with 'Saw problem, used logic to create an exit'. Because they aren't creative, doesn't mean they can't be logical.
An idea I have to roleplay a kenku is that they could have been raised by some kind of scholar and they were read a TON of books, when a situations requires a solution, they recite the books title, page, and line and say what the book said as a solution. This would be a good backstory for a wizard. For a parallel, think Ella the harpy from the heros of Olympus series.
I'm very inspired by the idea of a Kenku Wereraven, if that strain of Lycanthropy were to breach the boundaries of Barovia.
Edit: better yet, if you're the Lycanthrope, leverage the "curse" against a flock of the flightless fools, you can get the motivation for your assembly line! Reward the highest output birdo by giving them their flight.
To role-play a kenku I would think a voice recorder would be awesome
I played a kenku and i had a good vocabulary through being a bard, which i also used music to communicate.
Personally I love playing a kenku, but me and my dm both agree that having no unique thought is just a bit overboard. It’s already a lot for a player to Rp speaking as a kenku.
I played with this PC who was a Kenku Bard they basically were a Rockolla however you spell it
The only Kenku that I have played was a Kenku warlock that, as a part of his pact, gained the ability to speak and think on his own. This was mainly because the DM thought it would be interesting and weird.
The Creativity part is really interesting but not practical. I'd say they're a blank slate but have a hard time to improvise but do end up combining skills together. And imagine a homebrew text to speech spell for the Kenku to write in and learn to mimic for all the phrases they need!
Kenku makes a warlock pact to get all of wings, speech and creativity back for himself. That would make RP much easier and still leave him with some really cool natural abilities.
I played a Kenku monk for a run through The Tomb of Horrors. His name was the sound of wind rustling leaves. My DM said "woooosh" every time. It got old quickly. I couldn't imagine doing a full campaign with one. To me character growth (beyond level) is very important and with Kenku it is inherently impossible.
A Kenku Rogue with a sound board so when you find traps you can just do Admiral Ackbar "IT'S A TRAP!"
i play a kenku warlock of the great old one in the campaign i'm in currently. his pact is with ghaunadaur. it has honestly been a blast
many takes ive seen on the lack of creativity is that they dedicate themselves to training and studying to the extreme, along with practicing multiple possible outcomes to situations to be able to mimic later. a neat way to deal with it in a party would to spend downtime either sparring or studying with another member of the party, or even that the kenku just sits and listens in order to memorize more words or phrases
It’s quarantine time, a friend is teaching me to play and I randomly picked Kenku randomly, now I’m nervous 😂
Im planning on making a Kenku Rogue (Thief archetype) for my Gaming Club, they're name will be Clink and they were a scribe who was given the side role of a thief by their 'employer'.
This is too funny. i was in a party with someone playing a kenku... after listening to this he played that character waaaaaay wrong.. i haven't laughed this hard in a while... thanks guys
I played a Kenku who could only use mimicry, so everything he said was song lyrics. Think Bumblebee. A lot of research, but it was worth it, very fun, and funny, in practice.
I actually love my kenku.
They're a tragic race, and mine is an undying warlock. (He's young, so he doesnt get that his patron is playing him.)
The party seems to like him, and I know its all mimicry, but I tend to do it in his own "accent" so I don't have to try and mimic actual players.
He's a little walking tragedy, and Im truely in love with him as a character.
Gaijin goomba plays a kenku arcane tricksters rouge. His character is from the "eastern isles" *cough cough Japan cough*
He does? Is this streams or anything?
I played a Kenku Artificer and just constantly switched which voice I would do for her when speaking in character. I also enjoy making mouth noises, so that might have been part of why I enjoyed playing it.
So the Wisdom thing is actually probably an attempt to tie Kenku with one of their notable folklore inspirations. Kenku are roughly based on a creature from Japanese Folklore called a Tengu who are often depicted as a mix of crow and human (or a human with crow wings and a very long nose, this emoji 👺 is actually a Tengu Mask) and they were notable for dressing like Buddhist Monks who live in the mountains of Japan and were master material artists and fighters, so the ability scores for Kenku are meant to push you towards playing a Kenku Monk since that’s their closest folklore archetype.
My backup charavhter is a. Ascendant dragon monk (UA testing) with amnesia. I feel like a background like that can work interestingly with a kenku player.
Soon she'll be able to sprout dtagon wings when dashing. I can imagine lots of kenkus being monos just for more safely falling from heights, lol.
I played a one shot and we randomly rolled for race and class and I got a Kenku wizard. So I made him a necromancy wizard that used to be the pet/assistant of another necromancy wizard which is how he learned all the spells and what to do In combat situations. I took the telepathy feat so he could communicate with the rest of the party when he wanted to, but a lot of the time would just squark and say some random sentence he had heard. Actually was a really fun character to play so I have kept him in case I want to play him again. His name is Zazu obviously.
Played a Kenku Bard, was quite fun.
I kind of grok how Kenku can do things without any creativity or original thoughts, because it seems like their minds all run on splines. www.lunalindsey.com/2013/10/splines-theory-spoons-metaphor-for.html
I imagine a Kenku's brain kind of working like a huge stack of filing cards. Any and all data that comes in is compared against the existing filing cards. If there is a matching card, a kenku can follow the existing instructions; if not, a new card is created and filed. Sometimes an existing card can be updated with new information. What does *not* happen is two cards realising "hey, our information could be relevant to each other!" and spontaneously combining to create a new card with information or ideas that have not come from an external source.
Also they communicate solely through echolalia.
Basically all kenku are my autistic bird children, fight me.
Danielle Clarke do you think being autistic IRL would help to play a kenku character? Also, could it concievably be an adventure motivation to want to have creativity and flight and voices and ect again?
It could do, although not all autistic people process information the same way, so it'd depend on the individual and whether they think they can apply their own experiences to that style of play.
I have had a campaign idea in mind for a while where the party goes and fixes the injustices inflicted upon mortals by the gods' shenanigans, including removing the kenkus' curse and tearing down the Wall of the Faithless, so I think it could work as a character motivation, but in that case I'd probably avoid leaning too heavily on the autism parallels because that starts getting into uncomfortable eugenicist rhetoric about how they can never be happy without a cure for their "disease" and the analogy starts to break down.
There's also the question of what your Kenku, and Kenku in general, would act like if/when the curse is broken. If they all just start acting like "normal" people, completely verbose and good at improvising and all those other things, then your original character has effectively been killed off and replaced by a total stranger (which is another potentially uncomfortable autism parallel; a lot of parents of autistic kids are sure that "their real child is in there somewhere", and would happily 'cure' their kid to make them 'normal', i.e. completely wipe their brain and rewire it from the ground up so their kid is a completely different person). Kenku individuals and society have developed to deal with these forms of communication and cognitive methods, so even if they suddenly have these magically-imposed mental blocks removed, they're unlikely to be able to use them intuitively or reliably without a hell of a lot of trial-and-error, and they're probably likely to rely on the forms of communication and action-planning that they're used to for a long time, especially in high-stress situations.
Danielle Clarke Oh, I don't mean to imply that autism is the same as the kenku curse at all, only that as an autistic person (Aspergers, I.E. high functioning) I might have an advantage in playing and understanding a kenku character.
As for how the kenku would play after the curse is lifted, I actually have had an experience in my life that is kind of similar. I imagine it wouldn't so much be like the kenku has become a new person, but more like the kenku has "woken up", like a part of them was locked away and now they can see and feel it. This means that becoming accustom to their newly found creativity would be a slow and exploritory proccess for the kenku, like suddenly this new track of personal growth has opened for them, and like suddenly their hands have been unbound.
As for why the kenku PC wants to lift the curse as their primary objective, I had this thought that perhaps the kenku came from a tribe that passed down the memory of their fall in the form of a spoken history or something, thus providing a direct motivation and some knowledge of kenku history and how they once were.
That all sounds good to me ^_^
Im also plan to use a soundboard,but multiple and they're like jojo or arnold phrases XD though my character was originally a human but was body switched
I’m a new DnD player and I plan on playing a kenku. I know it can kill my team really quickly but my team is overpowered so I told my DM that I can create a character made to hinder the party and raise the challenge level for them 😊
Hey guys! Wanted to pop in on my main account to say two things.
First that you may find interesting, Creativity correlates pretty strongly with IQ along with trait Openness (big 5).
Second, I found the pot example to be really thought provoking!
I'd say replicating the pot isn't creativity per say; it's reiterating. Creativity is defined as making new things strictly speaking, reforming the pot is a matter of manufacture.
That said your kenku may not have the motor skills to iterate on a specific process without proficiency in a relevant skill.
Arcana for magic items, mason's tools for the aforementioned pot, etc.
Thanks for the video, totally going to introduce a kenku npc for some intrigue and espionage!
Interesting. Thanks for the insight! :)
i am playing a kenku in a campaign today
My next character will definitely be kenku
I know the gm shouldn’t be a part of a party but if the group or gym really insist the gm could be a mute kenku. Then the party tells him what the plan is and so on, all he does is try to do as the party says.
Don't think the person that invented 'Kenku' really thought that class all the way thru. AKA = Monster Food. Kenku's as a pc can get your party killed... Quickly
Kenku are My Favorite Race, Fight Me
i'll be playing a kenku bard starting this week... and I plan on being fairly loose with the creativity issue... I think my bard will act off of instinct rather than thought. he'll be able to mimic songs he's heard before... and when he learns new songs, I imagine he'll be just practicing scales and playing chords in the same old way it's always been done by others... Twenty One Pilots has a song and the lyrics go, "I wish I found some chords in an order that is new" and that's kinda how I think my bard will be... no big new ideas, just the same old chords in the same orders...
I play a kenku lore bard with skilled feat, I play him like a master of disguise, he is good at everything. My inability to speak common doesn't handicap because the paladin in our party speaks auran.
So, I don’t think I would personally play a Kenku, but I could see it being pretty doable for a support/ intel gathering character. As far as language this is how I as a DM would allow it to be worked around as well as here’s my opinion as a player. Since they live to be about 60, this Kenku could have been born in or near somewhere scholarly, this being around tons of books, and we as humans learn language the same way of starting small, then learning what order to put the words in and then learn bigger words and how to use them. So.... if this Kenku grew up watching all these people coming and going from say, a library and more or less was reading over everyone’s shoulder got to where his “mimicry” has grown such a large vocabulary (for lack of a better word) that he’s memorized basic sentence structure through repetition he could then use basic speech, so if he was speaking it would be a combination of sounds, head movements, and talking like Yoda, where it’s broken sentences that convey a general message. And the other players may or may not understand him, and may or may not have to make a check to see if the Kenku could say what he actually meant out of character.
I also feel like Kenku would be a good support via distraction, like making his sounds to distract a guard in the under-dark so the guard looks away giving a PC laying in wait to get attack of opportunity so forth and so on
I'm playing a kenku sorcerer! It's so fun
Honestly, to me the Kenku sounds like certain types of people in the autism spectrum that don't process language neurotypically and can do things like make amazingly lifelike sculptures and paintings, but only of certain things they have seen that their brain has latched onto... I'm not sure what to do with that, but it's interesting to me in terms of exploring and trying to better understand what life is like got someone with that type of brain processing...
kenku sound like yellow minions... i think I might put that in my game..lol
The Kenku lack of creativity can be worked with if you account for how everything is inspired by everything else. VGtM says they can't improvise or alter plans, but Kenku can repurpose sounds and words to communicate. Is that not altering, if not in function?
A "wise master sets multiple plans in motion at once" which seems like subtly changing plans by nature of proximity. It might be better to just ignore that curse, but their replicating items ability mirrors their replicating sounds ability. And they freaking communicate with sounds from different contexts. That's like how people hear/see memes, think they're stupid-funny, use them for a laugh in a situation that calls for them, then uses it unironically in more situations.
That's subtly innovative, no matter how "Hopeless Plagiarists" the book or the curse says Kenku are! They probably low-key innovate by accident all the time!
All that said, I rp Kenku by leaning heavily into the characters that inspired them (Harvey Birdman, Bird Person, etc.) And they typically speak in tv/movie/song quotes, like a YTP
It's converse, not conversate
I'm trying to figure out an rp reason why a Kenku could have lost its incapacity for creativity - I really like the concept of them, but from a gameplay pov I'd like be able to make at least basic off-the-cuff decisions without limiting myself to "oh but a normal Kenku couldn't do that". Everything else they can do seems so unique and interesting to play
As an autistic person who struggles to communicate, and often feels like I'm just repeating others, and feels kinda cursed, and struggles to adjust when things go wrong quickly, I wanna play a kenku! Also, yeah deception and wisdom doesn't make much sense, id rather have it be investigation due to crows amazing eyesight, and intelligence. Maybe have kenu also be specifically artistically and socially not creative but very good with puzzles machines and traps.
Idk why but this race sounds amazing to play as. It just seems so creative (your dm agrees to get rid of the creativity bs)
I’m still playing a kenku and it is hard
I view kenku’s lack of unique thought as inability to think outside of the box. They can use existing information, but can’t create hypothesis’s or improve on designs or learn how to fix something that failed without being shown. Only know how it failed, but not how to change it.
I play a Kenku Rogue. Her Father got rid of the Kenku Curse (and with his children). That way she's pretty playable. She still doesn't have her Voice or Wings back, but thanks to creativity she can overcome this.
I enjoy playing her a lot!
Tengu in pathfinder are better. They lost their flight, but nothing else. Also they are sword trained, meaning they are proficient in all swords.
Nice! I should look into Pathfinder equivalents a bit more.
From what i see of the 3.5 monster manual 3, Kenku have no restriction on speaking or creativity. To me, i find these new additions to kenku with 5e as some hamfisted attempt to make them more interesting.
Please remaster the audio on this episode PLEASE!
How can they imitate anything yet can't speak?