Kenku!

[Iron Sky]

I saw the picture of the Kenku in the Character Builder and created them based off of that one picture (and a super-quick skim of their racial write-up) before sticking them into my game.

In it, they wear komonos and straw hats, wield katanas, and travel through the giant Elder Wyld forest in walking villages: villages built on platforms that have wooden bird-legs built into the bottom and animated with ritual magic.

For general society-theme, they are somewhat inspired by feudal Japanese culture; samurai, peasants, hard working, dedicated, quiet craftsmen whose warrior castes once defended the edges of the Five Cities of the Sword (the elven/Eladrin deep-forest Kingdom that fell one hundred years ago).

Their Kensei master-swordsmen and spirit shaman are also frequently members of the Council of Thorns, an order dedicated to hunting down and eradicating demons that find their way into the world.

All that from one picture! In reading other people's responses, they're probably more suited to being ninja than samurai, but it's all good.

 

[Piratecat]

My kenku assassins use pigeons both as spies and as a special effect; for instance, when the kenku wizard hit the PCs with a force-based area effect spell, it appeared that a flock of pigeons swooped out of the sky and ran into them. I want the PCs terrified of common birds, since in my game pigeons usually act as harbingers for a kenku death squad.

My kenkus are members of the Enlightened, an assassin's guild that takes jobs without rancor or hatred for the "client"; they only take engagements that they believe will make the world a better place. The Enlightened shine light into the dark corners of the world, they believe, and stamp out what scurries away. Unfortunately, they seem to have a contract out on one of the PCs...