I had decided I'd attempt to monster gussy creatures I actually encountered in my 5e Princes of the Apocalypse game, and we finally (this was the fourth session maybe?) fought something that wasn't just people or undead people: Kenku!
Now, to be honest, we took out four of them with two sleep spells so we barely saw anything particularly kenku about these kenku, but I haven't gotten a chance to do this yet so I'm starting at a suboptimal place. Also, I suspect there'll be more kenku to fight eventually.
Flipping to the 5e entry for Kenku, we immediately see they're 100% lackluster. They gain advantage against surprised creatures (had to look that up as I figured everyone might) and the ability to mimic any sound they've heard. Otherwise, they're basically gypsy goblins that don't really talk.
Language rant: its pretty outrageous/implausible that creatures (as a race) can understand languages but cannot speak them. Individuals with speech deficits, sure. As a race which can mimic any sound they've ever heard, why they wouldn't communicate with efficient language rather than some crazy pantomime is stupid. In fact, its likely that with a vocal tract that can really mimic sounds well, they'd have a language that's truly baffling in the number of subtle distinctions in speech sounds; an agglutinating language with monosyllabic words comes to mind as things like tone, voice quality, and a large array of consonant clusters are all possible. So first fix: kenku can't understand language either. A bit reminiscent of how I'm imagining treating orcs and the like in my vision of the Empire of Man.
Now that that's out of the way, we have boring, featureless bird-like humanoids with an interesting quirk of language making them a little reminiscent of the Dabus of Planescape fame. But what will make them better?
There's a few more things ravens/crows are kinda known for: pecking out eyes and stealing glittery things (we've already got mimicry down). Unfortunately Kenku (or Tengu as they're known in Pathfinder) don't have a 13th Age entry anywhere as far as I can find. They're known as Ravenfolk in the Midgard campaign setting, and I have the 13th Age version of the Midgard Bestiary, but Ravenfolk're only presented as a PC option, not a monster to do battle with.
So without further ado, here's a couple abilities to tack on:
Now, to be honest, we took out four of them with two sleep spells so we barely saw anything particularly kenku about these kenku, but I haven't gotten a chance to do this yet so I'm starting at a suboptimal place. Also, I suspect there'll be more kenku to fight eventually.
Flipping to the 5e entry for Kenku, we immediately see they're 100% lackluster. They gain advantage against surprised creatures (had to look that up as I figured everyone might) and the ability to mimic any sound they've heard. Otherwise, they're basically gypsy goblins that don't really talk.
Language rant: its pretty outrageous/implausible that creatures (as a race) can understand languages but cannot speak them. Individuals with speech deficits, sure. As a race which can mimic any sound they've ever heard, why they wouldn't communicate with efficient language rather than some crazy pantomime is stupid. In fact, its likely that with a vocal tract that can really mimic sounds well, they'd have a language that's truly baffling in the number of subtle distinctions in speech sounds; an agglutinating language with monosyllabic words comes to mind as things like tone, voice quality, and a large array of consonant clusters are all possible. So first fix: kenku can't understand language either. A bit reminiscent of how I'm imagining treating orcs and the like in my vision of the Empire of Man.
Now that that's out of the way, we have boring, featureless bird-like humanoids with an interesting quirk of language making them a little reminiscent of the Dabus of Planescape fame. But what will make them better?
There's a few more things ravens/crows are kinda known for: pecking out eyes and stealing glittery things (we've already got mimicry down). Unfortunately Kenku (or Tengu as they're known in Pathfinder) don't have a 13th Age entry anywhere as far as I can find. They're known as Ravenfolk in the Midgard campaign setting, and I have the 13th Age version of the Midgard Bestiary, but Ravenfolk're only presented as a PC option, not a monster to do battle with.
So without further ado, here's a couple abilities to tack on:
