Talk:Kenku (5e Race Variant)

• Kenku are based on the mythological creatures, the Tengu, in Japan.
  • There are two types of Tengu. "Hananaga" Tengu, or literally "long nose" Tengu and "Karasu" Tengu, or "crow" Tengu. Therefore, for your Kenku subraces, I think you should similarly create Kenku with human heads and are taller than their regular bretheren, and "normal" Kenku from the monster manual. This way you can give the "human" Kenku traits that would benifit a monk or a wisdom based class, and give the "crow" Kenku traits that benifit a rouge or dexterity based class.
  • While this may make them seem like two completely separate races, this has been done with the monster class Yuan-ti (Some take on more human shapes, others more snake like) and so as long as you keep some descriptions the same this shouldn't be a problem.

• An interesting thing I found whilst researching tengu is that these two types of tengu, what you refer to as "hananaga-tengu" and "karasu-tengu", is that these are reincarnations of Buddhists who cannot go to heaven because of their bad principles, yet cannot go to hell because they are Buddhists. Thus, they become tengu. However, not all tengu are equal. The knowledgeable Budddhists who become tengu are daitengu (greater tengu), and the ignorant Buddhists become kotengu (lesser tengu). The terms you used mean the same thing, hananaga-tengu being another name that is sometimes used for daitengu, and karasu-tengu being another name for kotengu. However, daitengu and kotengu are the most common terms, and thus will be what I use for the names of the subraces. Fitting in with the two different physical forms of tengu, daitengu are more human-like, whereas kotengu are more avian. Therefore, daitengu and kotengu are the two subraces there will be for Kenku.

• So through the kenku can only talk through mimicry (get player to write down all the words they have heard- starting with about 10 words). This would be intresting but annoying. WinglessDwarf

• Blessed Kenku striking anyone else as a bit OP? That bonus action is a bit much, at any level, and the Gentle Repose trait could probably be nerfed, if only for the sake of it; the buff to Intelligence doesn't make a lot of sense, either. Also, Kenku don't have darkvision in the 5th edition Monster Manual.
  • (Also, I think you're supposed to use four tildes (~) to sign comments here. I'm kinda new, though, so I dunno; I just remember being told it was that way in the Elder Scrolls wiki, which is also part of MediaWiki.) Knowlessman (talk) 19:05, 27 November 2015 (MST)

Really not feelin' those stat boosts on the Blessed, loosely based on tengu or not; stat boosts aren't supposed to go above a total of +3 unless the race has practically no other notable features, which is anything but true considering they're born Rogues, with additional temp HP once a day. For that matter, if a DM wants to bring the likeness closer, that should be up to them; I'd rather just make a race out of what's already there, and what's already there is cool enough. I don't really even think Kenku need any of the abilities given to the Wretched subrace; the write-up of 'em I've made just has what's in the first traitblock (minus Darkvision, which again, they don't have in the 5th MM, and rephrasing Mimicry to adding double proficiency (similar to the Rock Gnome's Artificer's Lore trait)), plus a +1 to Charisma. Knowlessman (talk) 12:51, 3 January 2016 (MST)

Turns out that in addition to Kenku being in one of the 3.5 Monster Manuals, actual Tengu themselves show up in the same edition's Oriental Adventures. Anyone else in favor of just making Tengu its own race and splitting it from Kenku? Kenku even have their own backstory in 5th edition. Knowlessman (talk) 12:46, 25 January 2016 (MST)

• Further turns out that the Oriental Adventures tengu are "also known as kenkus," which is somewhat maddening, seeing as they share no similarities with the kenku in the same edition's Monster Manual 3 at all. Oriental Adventures tengu don't even have the Mimicry trait, and as I mentioned, the 5e Monster Manual gives them a backstory completely divorced from the Japanese tengu. Put it this way: is anyone opposed to making Tengu and Kenku two complete, separate races? Neither or them actually have flavor in this page as-is, and this would solve the problem for both of them. Knowlessman (talk) 21:46, 13 March 2016 (MDT)

• I'd like to... do several things. I apologize for the venting in the last edit reason; I point out that the check to discern a Kenku's imitations from a real sound is referred to as a Wisdom (Insight) check in the MM; and I again ask if there are any objections to splitting this into two whole races: Tengu, which will take some of the previous "Favored"/"Blessed" subrace traits and play into the general flavor from Oriental Adventures; and Kenku, which will represent the species found in the Monster Manuals. If there are no objections (and if/when I remember to), I'll start making a page for Tengu and consolidating the page for Kenku. Not all races absolutely need subraces. Knowlessman (talk) 01:03, 25 September 2016 (MDT)

that sounds like a good idea to me. The two ideas are clearly too big to be adequately covered by a single race. --Kydo (talk) 10:44, 25 September 2016 (MDT)

Seeing as there's an official Kenku player race now, should we either delete this, copypaste the official Kenku race here (if it's OGL, which to be fair it quite likely isn't), or mark it a Variant race? ...Also, sorry on not getting around to making Tengu race. >_< I do want to get around to that sometime, but if somebody else wants to beat me to it they can (I'll probably end up editing the crap out of it, but only as I think is needed). Knowlessman (talk) 11:25, 1 December 2016 (MST)

I'm not really up on the official publications... where can the Kenku be found? Marasmusine (talk) 11:28, 1 December 2016 (MST)

Volo's Guide, dude. Where you been? :P I'm not sure any part of Volo's is under the OGL, though; didn't see anything saying so in Google hits. Knowlessman (talk) 20:30, 1 December 2016 (MST)

Thanks. (I don't know, I got the core books when they first came out then I just didn't keep up). Looking at it, we certainly can't print the Kenku from it. I'm looking at the contents, and it's got the flail snail! I know what to ask for Christmas. Marasmusine (talk) 02:26, 2 December 2016 (MST)

May I ask a few odd questions about the Kenku Variants? 1. What different variants are there? (Is there stuff like Deep, Rock, and Scribing Gnomes) 2. Must the bird be a crow/raven that the Kenku is, or can it be any kind of bird? D&DAmateur