D&D 5E Kenku - Poorly thought out race no matter how cool

[Azzy]

As a side note, I want to play a Kenku named "Meme" who only talks in memes

"Come at me, Bro!"
"Cash me outside, howboutdah?"
"Feels bad, man!"
"Problem?"
"Ermahgerd!"

Cool story, bro.

 

[Azzy]

Per the PHB "most spells require the chanting of mystic words, the words themselves are not the source of power, rather the particular combination of sounds with specific pitch and resonance, sets the thread of magic in motion."

So the verbal component is most certainly the speaking of very specific words, and more so they are spoken in a very specific manner.

This in no way means that "particular combination of sounds with specific pitch and resonance" used is the same from culture to culture, or even from caster to caster. A kenku spellcaster could possibly use sounds it can already mimic when it learns spells. Also, there's the easy path of getting someone else to recite the verbal component and then mimicking that when actually casting the spell (heck, a kenku might go out of its way to have different people recite the verbal component for each of its spells—just for kicks).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

kenku have no ability to invent new ideas of create new things

I'd morph that into a species/cultural preference for "thievery", mimicry and emulation that is so strong that they generally and systematically undervalue individual creativity and innovation...except when it relates to "thievery", mimicry and emulation.

End result: a kenku with an inventive mind might not become an actual inventor, and would spend more time reverse engineering the technologies of other species. Sort of like feathered Sigma Iotians...

And their spellcasters? Given time, a concerted effort by larger enclaves of Kenku could piece together a pretty sizeable magical syllabary, suitable for reverse engineering spells themselves. Especially if there were a racial vow or secret society with the express intent to do so.

 

[Shasarak]

That seems like an odd limitation for a Race.

 

[Ancalagon]

Two options here come to mind:

1: Do not allow a Kenku to be a wizard... but *do* allow warlocks (patrons wispers them the words) and maybe sorcerer (magic is from within so exact wording is less important). So it's a limitation, but a Kenku arcane caster is still possible.

2: Have Kenku learn spells differently. They don't learn from books, they learn from *hearing*. So let's say the party fights an evil wizard, kills him and gets the wizard's spell-book. The human party mage is excited, new spells! But what if the evil wizard escape, or the spell-book cannot be found? Nothing! The Kenku wizard colleague however can now copy in their own spell-books every spell the evil wizard cast in the fight due to their mimicry.

So it's a limit (they need assistance with a spell book) but also a boon (they don't need an enemy spell book, just hearing someone cast a spell).

 

[thethain]

It has been flat out tweeted by crawford that nothing precludes a Kenku from casting spells.

Maybe your kenku used to live outside some magic training facility and has heard literally every spell be cast before. Maybe if hes a warlock of the Old One one he has heard the hissing discordant sounds in his own mind (and mimics them similarly to his party's displeasure).

Actually a Kenku Old One Warlock would offer so many awesome chances at RP. He could be the conduit for the old one, so that when he used for example telepathy, it was actually messages directly from the old one, the Kenku himself may not even know exactly what was said. And during his already odd talking patterns jumping from gruff or squeaky, occasionally words or entire sentences would be this very ominous and multi-chorus voice. This guy may believe he has overcome two of the ancient curses of the kenku, but in reality he just is allowing the old one to manifest in those areas. Maybe even work with the DM to replace one of the say levitate ability of warlocks with a temporary (or eventually permanent) set of wings.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Especially since their write-up in Volo's talks about kenku spellcasters.

I just recently played a kenku arcane trickster. That's pretty much how our DM handled it. Also, a kenku caster is probably going to have a decent INT, meaning they have the capacity to have thought of alternate solutions, like your solution of historical kenku casters.

This as the thread I created the other day about this same scenario. I'll just repost my original post here instead of retyping it:

Doing a playtest for an AL adventure last night, and since it was playtest, I decided to go out of the box and play a kenku rogue (investigator). One of the kenku's abilities is to be able to mimic any voices you've heard. Not a mechanical racial trait at all. But oh boy, did it have an effect in the game much greater than any of the actual mechanical traits. Some examples:

On the way to the town to investigate a kidnapping, we rescued one of the village women from a goblin ambush. While talking with her, she mentioned the innkeeper "Crespo, he's a pretty fat man. And always seems to have coin, unlike all of the other people in the village."

When we got to town later, and found the inn, there was a crowd of agitated people with the town constable addressing them. "Calm down! There's no need to get upset! We'll get this handled, just relax!" They were upset because one of the townsfolk was found brutally murdered. Then a voice interrupted us from behind. We turned around to see "a larger man, who introduces himself as Crespo, ask if there was anything we might need."

I immediately replied, fairly loudly, in the woman's voice we rescued, "Fat Crespo. Always has money. Always has money. Fat Crespo!" Did I mention my CHA was 8? Needless to say, we didn't get any sort of discount lol

Later at the crime scene, we saw a body with blood everywhere. The DM described the constable looking a bit pale. So I called out, again loudly in my Gil Grissom (CSI) voice, "Good lord! Who knew the body held so much blood!"

The constable turned around and vomited, to which I replied, in his voice he used earlier at the inn, "Calm down! There's no need to get upset! We'll get this handled, just relax!"

That finally unnerved him and he ran away, allowing us to investigate without prying eyes.

That was just a few examples of stuff like that I was doing all night lol. Many of the things that happened in that game were because of my impressions. Including throwing off the opponents by using illusions and mimicry to confuse the heck out of them. I would love to be in a game with Simon Helberg (Howard from Big Bang Theory) playing a Kenku. Or any other person who does great impressions.

.

 

[Alexemplar]

...Second magic is not spoken in Common. Bumblebee speech only works if the Kenku was around large numbers of spellcasters listening as they cast dozens of different spells so he could build his vocabulary.

I.E. be a first level spellcaster.

By the time you have your first level in any class, you're assumed to have been training for some time- years usually. Plenty of time to have hear all kinds of stuff, even if you couldn't cast the spells yourself at the time.

As far as Warlock/Sorcerers are concerned, I would imagine that they learn/hear their spells spoken from their patrons or in their dreams. The idea of a Kenku spellcaster taking on the voice of an Archfiend/Great Old One/Dragon would be pretty cool.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Because of this thread, I revisited some of the YouTube videos of parrots and cockatoos cursing like sailors...

 

[Gradine]

I'd morph that into a species/cultural preference for "thievery", mimicry and emulation that is so strong that they generally and systematically undervalue individual creativity and innovation...except when it relates to "thievery", mimicry and emulation.

End result: a kenku with an inventive mind might not become an actual inventor, and would spend more time reverse engineering the technologies of other species. Sort of like feathered Sigma Iotians...

Came here to post exactly this, only not as succinct or well-put. If you wanted to get evolutionary about it, you could argue that mimicry comes so naturally to the kenku and invention so unnaturally that their evolution as a species tended to favor the former and selectively weed out the latter.

As a result they are not just biologically but culturally intellectual scavengers. It does not make them un-intelligent, as others have suggested; it makes their connection to the very nature of intelligence fundamentally different from that of humans. Humans value genesis; Kenku value synthesis. In terms of fantasy racism, I could easily see humans treating Kenku as unintelligent or lacking free will because of their inability to invent new ideas, while I could see Kenku treating humans as unintelligent or myopic for their inability to see the inherent connections in things and their ceaseless drive to constantly reinvent the wheel.