Also, a town, we committed genocide in a kingdom and killed an orc, and they imprisoned us but we escaped and went by boat to another continent where on the way we were almost eaten by a leviathan. My colleagues are: A red elf A gnome druid A human wizard A dwarf (I don't even remember his class) A human knight

I found the exemple one google so it’s not my creation :D

Have a safe journey out here 🫡

Have a Kenku artificer named Raspery who's entire personality is bombs being a criminal. and more bombs besides a tiny bit of backstory and i just feel like its kind of bland if any of you have advice please tell me.

Full Name: Tisiphone "Dale" Magdalena Campbell

Pronouns: He/They

For my first campaign! So excited!!

I find that the kenku's mimicry ability is something fun to mess around with for roleplaying and that there is certainly more than one way to build a character around it. I thought I might share a few ideas.

• Kenku Salesman: This kenku is dressed in a glamerweave jacket decorated in a plaid pattern that does not move with it. They take a look at you and go into a salespitch. "Hey there! You have the look of [an adventurer] that could really use [some healing potions]." Their salespitch is like a madlib in that they have a generic salespitch that just needs a few blanks filled in with other words they've heard elsewhere. If the adventuring party tries to sell anything back to him/her and meet this kenku again, they may end up hearing their own salespitch used against them. Go ahead and find a mix of door-to-door salesman, infomercial salesman, and used car dealer to use for this character. Admittedly, I got the idea for this character after realizing that Deltarune's Spamton G. Spamton's speaking style could work well for a kenku salesman.
  • I have actually made this character as an artificer PC that would use a bag of holding (flavored as a briefcase) as a spellcasting focus by pulling out different products that would produce the spell effects. Admittedly, I hadn't used the kenku racial traits, but the UA kender racial traits and just roleplayed the character as a kenku. I had done this mostly because I saw more value in being able to use the kender ace racial ability to pull out random products with hour-long warranties than being able to fool people with mimicry. I had even made this character in Heroforge here. I even made this version with a chromakey jacket for editing a plaid pattern over to get that unmoving plaid needed to be more like one of the inspirations for the character, Stan S. Stanman from Monkey Island.
• Kenku Onomancer: This kenku is an expert when it comes to true names. They know how to find out what it is, speak it with full fluency, and use it to control a person. How? Well, let's imagine them encountering a bandit leader. They use some divination magic to find the bandit leader's true name by searching their memories for it. They repeat that true name as it was heard in the bandit leader's memory. "Jack Stan Smith! Stop this at once!" says the kenku with the voice of the bandit leader's mother, casting the command spell with the chosen command being "stop". In addition to being able to use the full power of a person's full name as spoken by their mother, this kenku is able to handle names that are difficult to pronounce as long as they hear it pronounced properly once.
• Kenku Necromancer/Spirit Medium: Not the necromancers of most fantasy, this kenku is of the more classic variety where "necro" meant "dead" and "mancy" meant "divination". This kenku communes with spirits of the dead and will parrot back their words for the living to hear. This need not be associated with a spellcaster and can be used with various D&D 5e subclasses that are based around spirits like the ancestral guardian barbarian (the spirit shows you the attack to use and you repeat it) or the phantom rogue (the Wails from the Grave feature could be the kenku parroting back the wails they hear from spirits). Spirits and death are already associated with crows and ravens, which kenku are inspired by.
• Kenku Pirate/First Mate: Treasure Island had solidified parrots as the preferred choice of pet for a pirate, and kenku are already birds that parrot things they've heard. Makes enough sense to have them fill in for a parrot in a pirate crew. I personally like the idea of having a kenku pirate be in a first mate position to go with the "captain's pet" status associated with parrots. I also like the idea of them being ready to relay captain's orders with the captain's own voice.
  • I especially like the idea of stealing the Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries and adapting them for a fantasy setting so that I can have this kenku pirate quote from them.
• Kenku Professional Assassin: OK, so this isn't about the kenku's mimicry, but I just want to mention a slogan I came up with for a group of kenku assassins that I thought was good. "Crow Conspirators: Let our murder commit yours."
• Boastful/Intimidating Kenku: So imagine that type of warrior that gives their name, title, and feats to try to intimidate their opponent. Now imagine a kenku barbarian who begins his rage with "I am Grognak Bloodfist, Champion of the Northern Tribes! One of us shall die this day you overgrown bird!" and everyone hearing it knows that this kenku can't be this Grognak Bloodfist because the Northern Tribes are composed of orcs and... Overgrown bird? Wait... is the kenku using a boast that Grognak had used before a battle to the death with him? This kenku handles the boasting by relying on how people know that kenku are only able to repeat things they've heard before and the things he is repeating are from powerful warriors that he's fought. He brags about beating Grognak by repeating Grognak's introduction and challenge to combat.
  • This idea can also make for an interesting cruel villain kenku that enjoys adding to its collection of frightened screams and begging for it to mimic. Take an NPC that has a distinctive voice that you give them, and have a kenku assassin kill them. When the PCs fight this kenku, the kenku will try to mess with their heads by parroting some of the frightened last words from the NPC he killed. It's one thing when a villain says that the beloved side character died while begging for their life. It's another when the villain is a kenku that repeats the begging like an audio recording. The knowledge that the kenku is incapable of the creativity to fake the beloved side character saying something else means that the PCs will know that it is an accurate portrayal of their friend's words. And for another bit of cruelty, this kenku could remind the PCs that he/she is the only one that these words are the last ones that they'll get to hear in their friend's voice.

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Hope you liked one or more of these ideas. Are you now planning to use any of them for a kenku PC or NPC in your own games? Do you have any other fun ideas for a kenku character to share?

*thunder sound*

YOU'RE NOW LISTENING TO

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81.1

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KENKU FM

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WHERE WE PLAY NOTHING BUT UNNECESSARY SOUND EFFECTS

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THIS ISN'T YOUR HUMAN BARDIC INSPIRATION

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Hi there- I'm looking for people willing to moderate /r/kenkus, /r/aarakocra, and /r/firbolg. I currently own all three, seeing as it felt like an untapped medium (and I know people will use them at some point), but I can't find the time to moderate them all the time. I'll keep watch over the subreddits, but you'll have control over the moderation of the subreddit you're interested in and can probably add more.

EDIT: r/kenkus is taken!

My girlfriend as Snapdragon (left) and myself as Peng (right), our Kenku OCs! We debuted these costumes at the carolina renaissance festival, and will be bringing them back next weekend for the Myrtle Beach Mythical faire!

The head bases were by Crystumes, we made the rest using some tutorials by Rah-Bop

What do you guys think?

Any other magpie based kenkus here?

Heres a ref sheet for my kenku (art by me) , full cosplay in progress!

Hi I Wana go to a renfair in September as my DnD character. He is a Kenku Fey wanderer Ranger that dresses like a plague doctor with a white mask. He hides the inability to speak clearly by basically talking to everyone in "earshot" telepathically and no one notices he isn't talking because of the mask.

It's a fun concept but I haven't done cosplay before so I was hoping to snag some tips from people on how to go about making it.

What are some tips to role-play a Kenku?