Homebrew Chickenfolk Species Details

The farmsteading kin of the majestic, high soaring aarakocra. Many believe this offshoot of the birdfolk family tree emerged from long exposure to the Material Plane. No longer required to fly just for basic mobility these stouter folk must make due with wings good for little more than coasting. 

They are the settled folk, homebodies, craftspeople, and excellent cooks. Their footholds are tranquil and pastoral with a certain downhome hospitality matched only by Halflingfolk. 

Beak and Feather

Chickenfolk look much like large farm fowl. While generally associated with chickens, their coloration and headshapes cover as wide a range of looks as any of their other flightless kin. Pheasants, turkey, ostrich, emu, and penguin-like features are among their common looks, but none as common as the rooster/hen of a typical chicken. Standing upright, chickenfolk might reach 5 feet tall, and they have long, narrow legs that taper to sharp talons.

Feathers cover their bodies. Their plumage typically denotes membership in a tribe. Males are brightly colored, with feathers of red, orange, or yellow often with combs and/or wattles in brilliant blues or reds. Females have more subdued colors, usually brown or gray. Their heads complete the avian appearance, spanning a wide range of head and beak shapes. One unique distinguishing feature between the chickenfolk and their aarakocra kin is that the chickenfolk have retained large tail feathers. A chickenfolks retrices are considered the primary physical feature regarding beauty standards within their species. Combs and wattles are also features of pride, but nothing compares to a large, colorful, and well cared for tail display. Young chickenfolk males are espeically known for arriving to Market with tails erect and attempting to keep them so for the entirety of the visit. Doing so requires great physical effort and the vast majority will lose their display after the first few hours of arrivng. When they feel the need to impress or intimidate they'll reraise the display strutting in circles around their target of affection or ire.  

Pastoral Protectors

Chickenfolk retain the light-bodies of their flight-endowed kin, but find themselves a much more grounded variety. While all members of this subspecies retain the ability to glide using their wings, full flight is no longer a possibility. A few subspecies have even lost that ability in exchange or a more aquatic-oriented lifestyle. In combat they are quick and brutal diving immediately for killing blows and seeming to take a wicked pleasure in the use of their own talons. 

Among their kind taking to the path of a monk is common. Mediation and peaceful existance appeal to the birds, though when pushed a certain unmistakable brutality emerges. Generally territorial, chickenfolk tend to associate a region with their nest and defend that with extreme fervor. Standing between a chickenfolk and their egg is one of the more dangerous places a creature may find themselves. This protective instinct causes some chickenfolk to think very little of the world beyond the view from their nest. 

Avian Mannerisms

The resemblance of chickenfolk to birds isn’t limited to physical features. Chickenfolk display many of the same mannerisms as ordinary birds. They are fastidious about their plumage, frequently tending their feathers, cleaning and scratching away any tiny passengers they might have picked up. While patrolling their nesting grounds they often scratch and peck at the ground. With their significant height compared to typical birds they have developed a species wide appreciation for fine walking staffs, especially those with a sharp forked point to pick up any tasty wrigglers they come across. 

Many chickenfolk speak at a volume uncomfortable to most humans. As they lack true lips, their kind us vocal level and inflection to portray emotions. Filler words are also very common with their inclusion hinting at the meaning or weight behind the statements.  Chickenfolk have tendencies to grow irritated with people who fail to understand their nuances; often this emerges as a belief among chickenfolk that other species are just a little dumb or slow-witted. 

The idea of travel for pleasure baffles most chickenfolk. After all, who wants to leave home and nest? Even when explained to them, they initially find the notion mystifying. As a result, chickenfolk who have little interaction with other people might be a nuisance as they complain about every single element of travel and travelling. Telling a chickenfolk that a destination takes a week to get to will likely trigger a strong response centered around the idiocy of the person considering that journey. 

Chickenfolk who do leave their nesting grounds will often seek items and tokens to bring back with them. Everything, it seems, reminds a chickenfolk of home or would have the perfect place back at the nest. 

Comfort serves as the prime motivation for most chickenfolk. Getting them to push out of their comfortzone is a chore. This has created a negative stereotype that chickenfolk are lazy or unwilling to put forth their best effort at a task. Instead they tend toward efficiency. Seven hours working on a project is fine, but if the same functional end result can be accomplished after two why waste the other five trying to perfect it. Don't let perfect get in the way of done is defining trait for most chickenfolk. 

Homelands

Nests of chickenfolk may be found any where aarakocra have visted. While their forebears originated in the Elemental Plane of Air, without the need of constant flight other personality traits rose to dominance. The grounded kin of the high flyers prefer pastures and plains to make their homes. Excellent farmers and landtenders the regions surrounding chickenfolk settlements are well kept and clearly marked. Large settlements of these folk are incredibly uncommon and are usually a group of mostly empty buildings around a town square that are only occupied monthly or so during festivals and market days. 

Uninformed visitors to these odd empty villages tend to assume some wickedness has befouled the region as they are nearly identical to a well-kept but empty hamlet. Those strangers may not have noticed the miles and miles of expert agriculture they passed to arrive at that central gathering point. 

Referred to as Markets, these hamlet-sized villages serve a population many times what the buildings themselves would represent. The townsquare will feature a central gazebo able to accomodate fifty or so persons in the middle of a groomed clover quad in which many hundred more could comfortable gather. Buildings are stout, shuttered, and locked securely except for a few days a month when the Market is stuffed beyond believe by farmers and ranchers who live in the surrounding countryside. Occassionally the Market will house residents of other species who oversee the area while the rest of the village work their farmsteads. Whoever currently serves as the Top Chook resides within a centrally located Inn. This position may change twice a year during special market weeks where any number of interested chickenfolk may challenge for the spot. Celebrated just before planting and just after harvest these weeks are the most important of the chickenfolk calendar. 

CHICKENFOLK IN THE FORGOTTEN REALMS

Never well established in Faerûn, chickenfolk have few major nests. The newest of which is around and Goldenfields with others scatterd across The Greenfields, Giant's Plains, and The Shinging Plains near Amn. 

Only recently established near Goldenfields, the chickenfolk here have taken great strides to assist the city in its need to provide mass quanitites of food to support Waterdeep and the other major urban areas. While not officially a Market of their own, the chickenfolk have built an inn named The Gilded Cockerell using the image of a rooster with golden comb and wattle as the herald on their sign. Just as they would in a Market of their own they flock to the city once a month for three days to trade and socialize with one another before retreated back outside the walls to their farms. 

When the counts are made during Harvest and the spring Festival of Soft Soil Top Chooks find four dozen farms represented some of which are collaborations of three or four families. When all accounted for the chickenfolk population around Goldenfields is around 1100. 

Markets in the plains near Amn are more likely to contain three to four times that number which is the general maximum of any chickenfolk settlement. 

Great Purpose

Chickenfolk are a simple people with simple needs. They enjoy peace, solitude, and calm weather. Most of them have little interest in dealing with other peoples and less interest in spending time away from their homes. For this reason, it takes an exceptional circumstance for a chickenfolk to leave their farmstead and undertake the adventurer’s life. Neither treasure nor glory is enough to lure them away for they find purpose and pleasure in their work at home; a dire threat to their people, a mission of vengeance, or a catastrophe typically lies at the heart of the chickenfolk adventurer’s chosen path. 

One peculiar circumstance might call a chickenfolk to adventure. Occassionaly a fragment of their ancient heritage pushes through and a chickenfolk emerges from the egg only to be quickly identified as an Odd Clucker. Odd Cluckers immediately exhibit behaviors contrary to common chickenfolk practices. As chicks they leave their mother's side often looking under bushes or pecking around dark caves. While not overtly ostracized, their lifestyle is one of tension with their family and peers often leading to an early escape from home. As chickenfolk are considered matured at 12 years old these young members of their society usually wander away. New Markets often trace their origins to some Odd Clucker who grew too old to wander and needed a place to settle for their final few years. 

Chickenfolk Names

As with much of their speech, chickenfolk names include clicks, gobbles, and caws to the point that other peoples have a difficult time pronouncing them. Typically, a name has seven to eight syllables with the sounds acting as connectors and the parts identifying farm and family. When interacting with other races, chickenfolk lean into nicknames offered to non-chickenfolk as they generally believe others are just not quite smart enough to understand a proper full name.  

Chickenfolk nicknames are rarely gendered and several are commonly reused by members of the same nest because they like the way the sound and it is simpler if the slowfolk don't have to remember as many: Ayeaye, Aeyl, Beck, Car, Deek, Errk, Hekkek, Ikki, Kleek, Meneek, Orror, Qeek, Tak, Urrok, Zeet

CHICKENFOLK BACKGROUNDS

Backgrounds that are most appropriate for chickenfolk include the farmer, the entertainer, or the wayfarer if they are an Odd Clucker.

The small colonies of chickenfolk are insular. Few live away from their nests and fewer still are more than a day's ride to a Market. Even in the region surrounding Amn where so many of Faerun's chickenfolk reside it is uncommon to see one away from home. Most chickenfolk are rangers or druids with a strong connection to nature and home.

 

Chickenfolk Traits

Being granted the ability to glide is effectively a permanent application of the featherfall and jump spell, but otherwise this varient is essentially a flightless aarakocra.

Ability Score Increase

Your Dexterity score increases by 2, and your Wisdom score increases by 1.

Age

Chickenfolk reach maturity by age 6. Compared to humans, chickenfolk are shortlived rarely living longer than 30 years.

Alignment

Most chickenfolk are neutral and prefer law to chaos. Top Chooks are often lawful, but few chickenfolk genuinely care much about the needs and events occuring outside their farms.

Size

Chickenfolk are about 5 feet tall. They have thin, lightweight bodies that weigh between 80 and 100 pounds. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 25 feet.

Glide

While not wearing heavy armor you may glide from any height negating fall damage similar to the feather fall spell. Rather than falling 60 feet per round, you fall half that rate at 30 feet per round. Additionally, after falling 5 feet, you may move 10 feet forward for every 5 feet of descent. Through a feat of great effort and exertion you are able to flap your wings while jumping with sufficient force to ascend 30 feet vertically as though having cast jump. Doing so requires using a dash action. The combination of these abilities does allow a chickenfolk to leap into the air and glide forward 50 feet on flat ground. Note the slower rate of descent while gliding for chickenfolk characters attempting to cover longer distances by leaping from buildings or other raised areas.  

Talons

Your talons are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal slashing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common, Aarakocra, and Auran.