"Although unable to speak in their own voices, kenku can perfectly mimic any sound they hear, from a halfling’s voice to the noise of rocks clattering down a hillside. However, kenku cannot create new sounds and can communicate only by using sounds they have heard. Most kenku use a combination of overheard phrases and sound effects to convey their ideas and thoughts."
It occurred to me as I was creating one of these as an NPC that the language barrier could be a BIG problem for a PC. Upon first encountering a party, I figured a Kenku might have one phrase per point of Int already memorized from past conversations. However, in order to communicate well with the party the player would have to write down virtually everything they heard and where they heard it from in order to be able to use it later as their vocabulary.
As a DM, how strict would you be about the Kenku language limitations?
I think the kind of people who CHOOSE Kenku think it's a fun feature to play with and would want to strive to have them communicate in a way that plays like an audio collaged ransom letter. I've thought about rolling one but I DM more than I play, so they'd just get dusty feathers if I don't make them an NPC.
I'm sure people who just do a hack-and-slash campaign who don't mind meta would be more lax with how the Kenku players communicate, but in my opinion, if you want to play a race that doesn't speak when there's an overwhelming majority of playable races who CAN speak, I'd encourage them to get a new character before I handwave such a pointed feature, unless it's such a homebrewed world setting that it was no longer applicable, I guess!
Could also just have the character playing a Kenku say what they want to communicate, do a general Charisma/Performance check to see how well they do at Charades, and see where the dice falls.
I had considered the idea of making the character a Warlock who spoke through his Familiar but that seemed like a cheap workaround. Thanks for the advice.
I think "one phrase per point of Int" is unnecessarily restrictive. Unless the kenku has lived most of its life in isolation, by the time it's an adult it will have heard hundreds upon hundreds of conversations - and thus hundreds upon hundreds of phrases.
Have a look at how Matt Mercer handled a Kenku NPC in Critical Role.
When first encountered, she communicated solely by writing, but she quickly picked up and echo'd phrases used by the party to and around her: "Yes, I'm very sweet", "I kill things", and "Go F^#$# yourself". Since they're all voice actors, the Kenku NPC was also voiced as the person who originally used the phrase - but that's just showing off ;)
I don't think you need any arbitrary intelligence limit on phrases - just go with the phrases the party uses around them. That will build up pretty quickly.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Perhaps I should clarify something since there seems to have been a miscommunication:
The limit of 1 phrase per point of Int was for the phrases that the character already knew before meeting the party, not on any new ones. I figured the Kenku had to have been in contact with SOMEONE before the PCs came along after all. It made the initial meeting much easier. However, as I said before this was for an NPC and so contact with the party was limited. I'd had a notion for the PC for possible later use but was concerned about the language thing.
I had JUST had the hindsight of "oh, wait, do they mean how the Kenku handles verbal parts of spells...?" and dashed back here, but knowing they're a warlock with a familiar actually even makes THAT pretty easy to hand-wave: their verbal spellcasting is a spooky Kenku "EVP" imitation of the patron's voice. May be a bit of minutiae and "flavor text" but still fun, imho!
I had JUST had the hindsight of "oh, wait, do they mean how the Kenku handles verbal parts of spells...?" and dashed back here, but knowing they're a warlock with a familiar actually even makes THAT pretty easy to hand-wave: their verbal spellcasting is a spooky Kenku "EVP" imitation of the patron's voice. May be a bit of minutiae and "flavor text" but still fun, imho!
I hadn't thought of this. Yeah...that sounds like fun!
I think you're right, it's likely that the Kenku NPC would have encountered others which they could have gleaned phrases from - but I also don't think they would have to have such a repertoire, as the party phrases would build up quickly enough ( as per Critical Role ).
It's also possible that - as part of the curse - that they lose the phrases over time, if they're not around the beings which uttered the phrases, to reinforce them. That's totally a lore spin, and retcon justification for why the Kenku might be a blank slate.
I also don't think you need a mechanic for limiting previously heard phrases, just have a handful of useful ones on tap, based on what seems reasonable to you. You could - ahem - just wing it.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Matt Mercer did an excellent Kenku on Critical Role. It is a very good example of how you can have a Kenku interact with the party and how to use its lack of voice to flesh out the character, while still being able to communicate its thoughts and intents.
I am an online author and sci-fi lover who plays table too roleplaying games in his free time. See all my character concepts at: Character Bios – Jays Blog (jaytelford.me)
I introduced Kenku to my party with another character as well. The two were partners and information brokers. The human did most of the talking while the kenku responded once in a while with his partner off handedly interpreting things as part of natural conversation. Having the kind of Han/Chewbacca vibe really keyed my players into knowing what I was presenting them and helped keep the flavor that kenku's bring while not halting everything for the sake of the bird.
The Kenku's ability to mimic means that, if spoken to by enough people, it will eventually be able to talk normally by mimicking individual words from different phrases it has heard in a specific order. It's really not that different that how real world children learn to speak. However, if you want to play your Kenku NPC like a parrot, repeating solely whole phrases, there are other methods of getting a message across.
There is an old saying in the linguist business that what someone says is only half of what they mean. Verbal language, while convenient and important, is not actually necessary. At all. As a DM, you can describe facial expression, body posturing, minute behaviors, gestures performed, and all other manner of nonverbal methods of communication.
I have a player playing a Kenku in my session right now. Although it’s such a hard character to play (if the language barrier wasn’t hard enough, the curse’s infliction of a total lack of creativity makes it even harder), it has ultimately been a lot of fun for the player and everyone else. The player keeps a journal and writes down every amusing phrase that someone says and then pieces it all together, using the same inflection and accent with which the phrase was said. The character also uses sound effects to communicate ideas and feelings.
As a side-story related to unintended consequences of having a Kenku PC. In ToA, it quickly becomes apparent how extremely valuable Syndra’s map of Chult is with everyone offering mass sums of gold or trying to kill them for it. Well, the player used the Kenku’s trait of being able to perfectly replicate any document to draw a new map on the spot, garnering them a huge gold boost for the start of that adventure. I got played and had to reward the player, haha.
I wanted for my next pc to do a kenku. What i worked out cause i have do many books that i was goimg to pull all the stuff srom one book. The book i chose is funny given i wanted to do a paladin. The bools called the devils diaries. Thats my solution to the problem. The other is perhaps have a monk because the one feature they get at 13 to understand all languages.
I wanted for my next pc to do a kenku. What i worked out cause i have do many books that i was goimg to pull all the stuff srom one book. The book i chose is funny given i wanted to do a paladin. The bools called the devils diaries. Thats my solution to the problem. The other is perhaps have a monk because the one feature they get at 13 to understand all languages.
First: A Kenku can only repeat what they've heard. That doesn't mean they fail to learn or understand a language.
Second: Feats represent applied studies either in game or during downtime, and the feat specifically says "You have studied..." There are many ways to study, so a Kenku's mimicry impediment wouldn't present much issue, since most real learning is a form of mimicry in the first place. Most intelligent creatures have to be shown/taught/instructed how to do something before they can do it themselves. In other words, the act of studying and learning a language is, in and of itself, mimicry.
Third: You can easily make a cipher from things you mimic. You can easily make a cipher out of anything, since the meaning on the surface doesn't have to correspond to the meaning of the message. A drawing of a cat could very well be a cipher's symbol for a windmill, and a windmill could be a cypher's symbol for the exact price of a horse. What makes ciphers efficient isn't so much what you use to write them, but how well you disassociate the content from the intended message, spread that key to intended recipients only, and prevent unintended recipient from gaining knowledge of the key.
"Although unable to speak in their own voices, kenku can perfectly mimic any sound they hear, from a halfling’s voice to the noise of rocks clattering down a hillside. However, kenku cannot create new sounds and can communicate only by using sounds they have heard. Most kenku use a combination of overheard phrases and sound effects to convey their ideas and thoughts."
It occurred to me as I was creating one of these as an NPC that the language barrier could be a BIG problem for a PC. Upon first encountering a party, I figured a Kenku might have one phrase per point of Int already memorized from past conversations. However, in order to communicate well with the party the player would have to write down virtually everything they heard and where they heard it from in order to be able to use it later as their vocabulary.
As a DM, how strict would you be about the Kenku language limitations?
I think the kind of people who CHOOSE Kenku think it's a fun feature to play with and would want to strive to have them communicate in a way that plays like an audio collaged ransom letter. I've thought about rolling one but I DM more than I play, so they'd just get dusty feathers if I don't make them an NPC.
I'm sure people who just do a hack-and-slash campaign who don't mind meta would be more lax with how the Kenku players communicate, but in my opinion, if you want to play a race that doesn't speak when there's an overwhelming majority of playable races who CAN speak, I'd encourage them to get a new character before I handwave such a pointed feature, unless it's such a homebrewed world setting that it was no longer applicable, I guess!
Could also just have the character playing a Kenku say what they want to communicate, do a general Charisma/Performance check to see how well they do at Charades, and see where the dice falls.
I had considered the idea of making the character a Warlock who spoke through his Familiar but that seemed like a cheap workaround. Thanks for the advice.
I think "one phrase per point of Int" is unnecessarily restrictive. Unless the kenku has lived most of its life in isolation, by the time it's an adult it will have heard hundreds upon hundreds of conversations - and thus hundreds upon hundreds of phrases.
I always imagined kenku speech to be very much like Eric Idle's Wreck-Gar in the Transformers animated movie. He was just as verbose as his companions - he just used a lot of very familiar phrases and slogans in his speech.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
Have a look at how Matt Mercer handled a Kenku NPC in Critical Role.
When first encountered, she communicated solely by writing, but she quickly picked up and echo'd phrases used by the party to and around her: "Yes, I'm very sweet", "I kill things", and "Go F^#$# yourself". Since they're all voice actors, the Kenku NPC was also voiced as the person who originally used the phrase - but that's just showing off ;)
I don't think you need any arbitrary intelligence limit on phrases - just go with the phrases the party uses around them. That will build up pretty quickly.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Perhaps I should clarify something since there seems to have been a miscommunication:
The limit of 1 phrase per point of Int was for the phrases that the character already knew before meeting the party, not on any new ones. I figured the Kenku had to have been in contact with SOMEONE before the PCs came along after all. It made the initial meeting much easier. However, as I said before this was for an NPC and so contact with the party was limited. I'd had a notion for the PC for possible later use but was concerned about the language thing.
I had JUST had the hindsight of "oh, wait, do they mean how the Kenku handles verbal parts of spells...?" and dashed back here, but knowing they're a warlock with a familiar actually even makes THAT pretty easy to hand-wave: their verbal spellcasting is a spooky Kenku "EVP" imitation of the patron's voice. May be a bit of minutiae and "flavor text" but still fun, imho!
I hadn't thought of this. Yeah...that sounds like fun!
No - I think we got it.
I think you're right, it's likely that the Kenku NPC would have encountered others which they could have gleaned phrases from - but I also don't think they would have to have such a repertoire, as the party phrases would build up quickly enough ( as per Critical Role ).
It's also possible that - as part of the curse - that they lose the phrases over time, if they're not around the beings which uttered the phrases, to reinforce them. That's totally a lore spin, and retcon justification for why the Kenku might be a blank slate.
I also don't think you need a mechanic for limiting previously heard phrases, just have a handful of useful ones on tap, based on what seems reasonable to you. You could - ahem - just wing it.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I see what you did there...
Matt Mercer did an excellent Kenku on Critical Role. It is a very good example of how you can have a Kenku interact with the party and how to use its lack of voice to flesh out the character, while still being able to communicate its thoughts and intents.
I am an online author and sci-fi lover who plays table too roleplaying games in his free time. See all my character concepts at: Character Bios – Jays Blog (jaytelford.me)
I introduced Kenku to my party with another character as well. The two were partners and information brokers. The human did most of the talking while the kenku responded once in a while with his partner off handedly interpreting things as part of natural conversation. Having the kind of Han/Chewbacca vibe really keyed my players into knowing what I was presenting them and helped keep the flavor that kenku's bring while not halting everything for the sake of the bird.
#OpenDnD. #DnDBegone
If you watch critical role and have seen kiri try to "mimic" that
The Kenku's ability to mimic means that, if spoken to by enough people, it will eventually be able to talk normally by mimicking individual words from different phrases it has heard in a specific order. It's really not that different that how real world children learn to speak. However, if you want to play your Kenku NPC like a parrot, repeating solely whole phrases, there are other methods of getting a message across.
There is an old saying in the linguist business that what someone says is only half of what they mean. Verbal language, while convenient and important, is not actually necessary. At all. As a DM, you can describe facial expression, body posturing, minute behaviors, gestures performed, and all other manner of nonverbal methods of communication.
Current Projects: The Mimic Book of Mimics :: SHARK WEEK
Completed Projects: The Trick-or-Treat Table
My Homebrews: Races :: Classes :: Spells :: Items :: Monsters
I have a player playing a Kenku in my session right now. Although it’s such a hard character to play (if the language barrier wasn’t hard enough, the curse’s infliction of a total lack of creativity makes it even harder), it has ultimately been a lot of fun for the player and everyone else. The player keeps a journal and writes down every amusing phrase that someone says and then pieces it all together, using the same inflection and accent with which the phrase was said. The character also uses sound effects to communicate ideas and feelings.
As a side-story related to unintended consequences of having a Kenku PC. In ToA, it quickly becomes apparent how extremely valuable Syndra’s map of Chult is with everyone offering mass sums of gold or trying to kill them for it. Well, the player used the Kenku’s trait of being able to perfectly replicate any document to draw a new map on the spot, garnering them a huge gold boost for the start of that adventure. I got played and had to reward the player, haha.
I wanted for my next pc to do a kenku. What i worked out cause i have do many books that i was goimg to pull all the stuff srom one book. The book i chose is funny given i wanted to do a paladin. The bools called the devils diaries. Thats my solution to the problem. The other is perhaps have a monk because the one feature they get at 13 to understand all languages.
I wanted for my next pc to do a kenku. What i worked out cause i have do many books that i was goimg to pull all the stuff srom one book. The book i chose is funny given i wanted to do a paladin. The bools called the devils diaries. Thats my solution to the problem. The other is perhaps have a monk because the one feature they get at 13 to understand all languages.
Can a kenku use the linguist feat?
Yes: for several reasons.
First: A Kenku can only repeat what they've heard. That doesn't mean they fail to learn or understand a language.
Second: Feats represent applied studies either in game or during downtime, and the feat specifically says "You have studied..." There are many ways to study, so a Kenku's mimicry impediment wouldn't present much issue, since most real learning is a form of mimicry in the first place. Most intelligent creatures have to be shown/taught/instructed how to do something before they can do it themselves. In other words, the act of studying and learning a language is, in and of itself, mimicry.
Third: You can easily make a cipher from things you mimic. You can easily make a cipher out of anything, since the meaning on the surface doesn't have to correspond to the meaning of the message. A drawing of a cat could very well be a cipher's symbol for a windmill, and a windmill could be a cypher's symbol for the exact price of a horse. What makes ciphers efficient isn't so much what you use to write them, but how well you disassociate the content from the intended message, spread that key to intended recipients only, and prevent unintended recipient from gaining knowledge of the key.
Current Projects: The Mimic Book of Mimics :: SHARK WEEK
Completed Projects: The Trick-or-Treat Table
My Homebrews: Races :: Classes :: Spells :: Items :: Monsters