Kenku

> *"So you're saying that there's an entire city of bipedal vermin under the mountain? Come on, don't kid yourself!"*
>
>

Beastmen of unknown origin, the kenku are often mistaken for monsters, thanks to their highly animalistic looks and inconsistent speech patterns. Despite this, they are rather sophisticated, although very chaotic and often scheming, and often find themselves among groups of mercenaries or explorers, putting thier natural agility and instincts to use. However the kenku are a very rare sight, as they only rarely form communities and hence only rarely reproduce. Furthermore, the kenku can be split into several categories, the most common being the northern crowlings, the eastern molemen and the southern ratkin, which may be closely related, but cannot reproduce with kenku of other categories. Due to these factors, kenku often travel the lands, in search of purpose and companionship.

## Traits

When you choose for your character to be a kenku, you gain the following benefits and traits.

### Age

Kenku have comparably short lifespans, reaching maturity after 12 years of age, and living no more than 70 years.

### Size

Your size is medium. Adult kenku average sizes of about 150 centimetres. Kenku weigh around 80 lbs.

### Languages

You can speak, read and write Common and Auran, the elemental speech of air. Kenku have scratchy voices and little sense for language, having trouble constructing grammatically correct phrases while talking.

### Talents in Mischief

You gain proficiency in two of the following skills: acrobatics, deception, sleight of hand or stealth. Once per short or long rest, when you make a dexterity or charisma saving throw or ability check that you add your proficiency modifier to, you can give yourself a +5 bonus to the roll, before rolling the dice.

## Subspecies

As a kenku, you are a part of one of several categories of kenku, the most common ones being listed here. These groups may have stemmed from the same origin, but are biologically fundamentally different.

### Raven

Raven kenku are most commonly found in the northern continent, where they use thier strong senses to fend for themselves. With their talent for forgery and strong memory they are often employed by wizards of the less reputable kind, starting the rumor that these creatures where once creations by these spellcasters. However, most raven kenku don't stay in servitude for too long, having a strong need for personal freedom, causing them to often stray throughout the lands, performing the odd tasks whenever they are welcomed.

#### Mimicry

You can convincingly mimic sounds and coices you have heard, a technique which some kenku use to speak. A creature that hears the sounds you make can tell they are imitations with a successful insight check opposed by your deception check. Additionally, you have advantage on all checks made to copy or forge documents.

#### Crow's Resilience

You have advantage on all checks and saving throws made to resist magical and nonmagical disease and to resist being poisoned.

#### Plumed Fall

When you take fall damage, the distance used to calculate the damge you take is reduced by 10 feet.

### Mole

The molemen dwell within the caverns of the underdark, forming small gatherings whenever they excavate a find of high interest, whether that may be ruins or ore veins. While their eyesight has been diminished from the centuries spent in the dark, beign specialized to only identify details, they have specialized hearing, allowing them to orient themselves even within the deepest darkness. With an almost dwarven compulsion to hoard, molement rarely interrupt their mining operation, although one can be sure that in the event that they tread the surface, it is a matter of great urgency, at least for them.

#### Molesense

You have disadvantage on sight based perception checks if the target is more than 30 feet away from you. While you aren't deafened you have a blindsight with a radius of 30 feet. Within this radius, you can perceive creatures even if the creature is invisible or you are blinded.

#### Mine Training

You gain proficiency with leather armor, studded leather armor and heavy leather armor, aswell as Hatchets, Pickaxes, Shovels, Spades and Warpicks. You gain proficiency with Carpenter's Tools or Mason's Tools.

### Rat

Beneath the surface of the southern continents settle the largest communities of kenku, the locally infamous ratkin. With an aspiring interest in science and arcane experimentation, these chaotic rodents have made countless inventions which have changed the world in a multitude of ways. Not interested in fame, their creators have long since been forgotten, with only few remembering the origin of such inventions, leaving the ratkin in undisturbed isolation below their mountains, where they linger, only rarely exploring the field above to secure supplies and resources necessary for their ceaseless experimentation.

#### Ablity Score Increase

Your intelligence score is increased by 1.

#### Revel in Gadgetry

Whenever you use an object that causes you to make an attack roll, you are proficient in the attack. Whenever you use a nonmagical object that isn't a poison that forces a creature to make a saving throw against a fixed DC, you can add your proficiency bonus to the saving throw DC.

#### Experiment Exposure

You and your ancestors have been subject to the aftermath of countless experiments and self experiments, hardening you against such forces. When you take acid, fire, lightning or psychic damage, the damage is reduced by an amount equal to twice your proficiency modifier. When damage is reduced this way, it can't be reduced again until you finish a long rest.