- Creature Type Humanoid
- Size Your size is Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race.
- Speed 30 feet
- Alignment Lawful
- Age Maturing around age 10, living up to 50-60 years.
- Racial Features
- 1+1 ASI Choose one ability score to increase by 1. Choose a different ability score to increase by 1.
- Mimicry: You can accurately mimic sounds you have heard, including voices. A creature that hears the sounds you make can tell they are imitations only with a successful Wisdom (Insight) check against a DC of 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier.
- Carrion Sense: Kenku have a natural ability to sniff out carrion. While their sense of smell isn’t as keen as that of other species, it is particularly attuned to the scent of injuries or death. This gives them ability to detect presence and approximate location of a corpse or badly wounded creatures (50% or fewer hit points) that is located up to 1km away.
- Avian Origins: Your feathery upper appendages allow you to fly over short distances. You can have a flying speed equal to your walking speed but at the end of your turn you have to land.
- Star Fascination: These humanoid avians are mesmerized by the view of stars and they are deeply ingrained in their mythology. As a consequence, you can estimate your time, location and cardinal directions whenever you have a clear view of the stars.
- Society and culture Kenku are since ancient times fascinated with the stars and celestial bodies. They establish colonies in high places - mountain peaks, tall trees, or abandoned towers - where they can better observe the night sky. Many kenku serve as astronomers, cartographers, and navigators for other races, using their innate understanding of the stars to guide ships and caravans across vast distances.
Despite their valuable skills, kenku communities remain somewhat isolated, partly due to their practice of ritual cannibalism. The practice of consuming the flesh of their own kind, particularly relatives or close ones, is a demonstration of affection and a part of the funeral and mourning process. These ceremonies are many times performed under specific stellar alignments and are considered sacred.
- Physiology Kenku possess humanoid bodies covered in feathers of colors ranging from sleek black, through colorful red, green or yellow to pure white. Their beaks are sharp and slightly curved, and their eyes are typically solid black. The wings have evolved to allow short bursts of flight but not sustained aerial travel. They have three-toed feet with sharp talons that allow them to perch comfortably on narrow ledges.
- Religion Centered around reverence of stellar objects. Kenku believe the Sun Bird sealed the two gigantic Moon Serpents in their eggs and forced them into an eternal dance. One day, the Moon Serpents will be reborn and the whole world will come to an end. Particularly revered are sun eclipses, which are understood as battles between the Sun Bird and the Moon Serpents. The stars represent souls of the ancestors, dancing in intricate patterns across the night sky to keep watch over the imprisoned Moon Serpents when the Sun Bird is absent.
- Language Kenku language, an interplay of gestures, sounds and dance-like moves. Nowadays rarely used, many kenku adopted the Orynthian language.
- Relevant questlines Orbis Imperialis