Kenku
They are clever thieves of both coin and culture, lacking a creative voice of their own but perfecting the art of the mimic and forgery. Recently made even more popular due to Critical Role’s “Kiri”, the raven-folk are flocking to game tables around the world. Playing a kenku is a marvelous acting opportunity, as you cobble together your speech through stolen fragments and chaotic noise. Follow us deep into the criminal underbelly as we go through everything you need to know.
KENKU CULTURE
The actual origins of the kenku aren’t clear (largely due to conflicting lore between editions) but while the proper nouns may have changed around the story has the same notes. The kenku started as proper bird-folk with wings, creative talent, and a voice of their own. They served some sort of dark master and attempted to betray them by stealing some extremely important shiny bauble. The kenku were caught and given an all-mighty deity level punishment and were nerfed to oblivion, then they were let loose to wander around the material plane.
The result of all this is a deeply wounded culture that focuses on regaining what was lost.
Each kenku instinctually misses their ability to fly and their dreams take them skyward. Kenku flocks are drawn to high places, and since they rarely have any real resources of their own, they usually settle in ruined towers or high forgotten places amongst the city sprawl. Spells and magic items that provide flight are especially prized, and many kenku study magic explicitly to one day take to the sky.
Kenku have no empires or fortunes, they scrape their way by making use of what talents their people have left, mimicry and thieving. Each kenku can repeat the things they hear perfectly but have no voice of their own. They create their “vocabulary” out of words they’ve heard, and their speech is often choppy and segmented. This “lack of voice” applies to their artistic voice as well and kenku find it nearly impossible to create something new, a wound still aching from their ancestral curse. Without an artistic voice kenku remain a cultural echo, always on the edge but never forming a real culture of their own..
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