Tengu

Tengus are a gregarious and resourceful people that have spread far and wide from their ancestral home in Ysracao'sirabel, collecting and combining whatever innovations and traditions they happen across with those from their own long history.

Tengus are survivalists and conversationalists, equally at home living off the wilderness and finding a niche in dense cities. They accumulate knowledge, tools, and companions, adding them to their collection as they travel.

The tengu diaspora has spread across Cyril in search of a better life, bringing their skill with blade crafting to lands far from their home. In maritime regions, tengus notably work as fishers, blacksmiths, and “jinx eaters”— members of ships’ crews who are believed, accurately or otherwise, to absorb misfortune. Having lived in a variety of conditions and locations, tengus tend to be nonjudgmental, especially with regard to social station, though their willingness to associate with lawbreakers has often led some to look at them with suspicion.

If you want to play a character hailing from a rich history of artisanship and tradition, but who happily picks up new practices, companions, words, and items as needed, you should play a tengu.

## You Might...

* Be gregarious and eager to find a flock of your own.
* Voraciously absorb the practices of those around you, sometimes even forgetting where they came from.
* Be willing to take on any task or job, no matter what others think.

## Others Probably...

* Look to you as a source of eclectic skills and knowledge, especially relating to languages.
* Get confused by your simultaneous respect for and disregard of tradition.
* Have trouble reading your expressions or regard you with suspicion and superstition.

## Physical Description

Tengus have many avian characteristics. Their faces are tipped with sharp beaks and their scaled forearms and lower legs end in talons. As closed footwear tends to fit poorly unless custom made, many tengus wear open sandals or simply go barefoot. Tengus are rarely more than 5 feet tall, and they are even lighter than their smaller frames would suggest, as they have hollow bones. A small number of tengus have vestigial wings incapable of true flight.

Tengus hatch from eggs and are featherless for their first year of life, during which they rarely leave home. They soon grow a downy gray coat, which is replaced by a dark covering of adult feathers by the time they come of age at around 15 years. Tengus use their shed feathers in a variety of tools, from simple writing quills to magical fans to focus their ancestral magic. Many tengus modify their appearance by dyeing patterns into their feathers or talons, which amplifies their body language and has the added benefit of aiding other humanoids in understanding their expressions.

## Society

Tengus are extremely social, banding together in extended communities with many families living in adjacent houses and sharing the work of the household. In cities, a community may also contain members of other ancestries. Tengu children raised in the same unit consider each other siblings, usually forgetting which of them share a biological connection.

The greatest divide in tengu society is between tengus that wish to reinherit their land on Ysracao'sirabel and those who have dispersed across the world, content with life. Those that care about their homeland tend to be more traditionalist and conservative and are especially concerned with preserving their culture in the face of ages of erosion from oppression. Other tengus, on the other hand, voraciously absorb the culture of the various nations and settlements that they now call home.

## Alignment and Religion

Many tengu worship Nininnamara as she suites the things which many tengu care about most but some find Rakta's ancient knowledge appealing. Some hardcore traditionalist or those that simply see merit in him look towards Boodskapper but many tales of how Boodskapper once treated Tengu scare most off.

Before their diaspora, tengus were Nininnamara's little balls of luck and wanderlust created originally as messengers for Rakta they later were replaced and allowed to become their own to Nininnamara's delight.

Tengus are far more concerned with the balance between traditionalism and adaptability than they are with good and evil, with lawful tengus more common among the traditionalist and chaotic tengus more common among the adventurous.

## Adventurers

A tengu that leaves their homeland feels an intense pull toward adventure, to cross vast distances, collect beautiful treasures, and brave the challenges of combat or the rolling sea.

Tengu backgrounds might reflect their place in the homeland or the tengu diaspora. These could include acrobat, barkeep, charlatan, emissary, entertainer, fortune teller, gambler, merchant, nomad, or sailor from the *Core Rulebook*, plus bandit, courier, insurgent, refugee, and scavenger from this book.

Tengus often become rogue, bard, oracles, rangers, or swashbucklers.

## Names

Traditional tengu names while uncommon are still used by many whether they care about retaining their culture or not as they hold a specific love for certain sounds which are heard within their names, some cultures may use similar names or sounds causing a non-traditionalist to possibly pick one of those instead but most tengu are marginalized and designated nicknames anyways.

### Sample Names

Arkkak, Chuko, Dolgra, Dorodara, Kakkariel, Kora, Marrak, Mossarah, Pularrka, Rarorel, Ruk, Tak-Tak, Tsukotarra

## Other

### Feathers

Tengu feathers are known as the best natural writing implements for ink, blood, and similar liquids as was designed by Rakta herself--harvesting of these feathers is naturally pretty easy as you just wait for one to fall out but Tengu typically are pretty sharply attuned to this themselves as they know they can make quick money out of this process and taking a feather from a Tengu would be seen as extremely rude.