Kenku
The Kenku are a mysterious and solemn offshoot of the Ravenfolk, marked by their dark, weathered feathers, hunched postures, and haunting voices that echo with stolen sound. Though smaller and less flamboyant than many of their avian kin, the Kenku carry an air of eerie purpose—each one a living echo of forgotten voices, lost songs, and broken truths.
Kenku are masters of mimicry, able to reproduce any sound or voice they have heard with uncanny precision. Rather than speaking in original phrases, they piece together their speech from remembered snippets: a whisper in the wind, a merchant’s cry, a dying breath. This form of communication makes their words strange and fragmented to outsiders, but within Kenku circles, such language forms a rich and nuanced dialogue filled with layers of implication and intent.
Culturally, the Kenku are keepers of secrets, shadows, and silence. They have long served as silent scribes, spies, scouts, and messengers. Many believe the Kenku were once granted wings and voices of their own, soaring freely across the world before some ancient betrayal or curse robbed them of both. Whether this is true or not, Kenku often act as if burdened by penance—watching from alleys, rooftops, and crumbling towers, ever in search of what was lost.
Unlike their cousin race, the Corvum, who delight in riddles and clever schemes, Kenku tend to be reserved and highly observant, their minds focused on imitation, perfection, and memory. They are driven by a powerful compulsion to record, repeat, and reflect. Whether inscribing events in cryptic journals or silently trailing powerful individuals, they play the long game, hoarding information like others hoard gold.
Communities of Kenku are rare and secretive. When they gather, they build quiet enclaves where echoes reign supreme—walls etched with symbols, recordings of distant voices playing softly, and silent rituals honoring forgotten oaths. In many ways, their settlements are living archives, cryptic libraries made of wordless reverence and recorded memory.
Their magic is subtle, favoring enchantments, illusions, and divinations—spells that deal in knowledge, secrecy, and the mind. Some Kenku carry enchanted feathers from their ancestors, said to hold the voices of the past. Others etch runes onto bone or glass, creating magical devices that repeat whispers or cast veils of silence.
Kenku are often viewed with suspicion, pity, or awe. To some, they are eerie scavengers or spies without loyalty. To others, they are sacred witnesses to history, chosen to remember what the world would rather forget. Their mimicry unnerves many—but among sages, warlocks, and archivists, a Kenku’s recall is invaluable.
For the Kenku themselves, identity is found not in what they say, but in what they choose to repeat. Each stolen voice becomes a piece of their story, every phrase borrowed a brushstroke in the painting of their lives. In this way, they speak their truths not with invention, but with selection—crafting meaning from a chorus of memory.
In the great tapestry of Aigusyl, the Kenku are both ghosts and guardians. They do not sing their own songs, but they ensure the world never forgets the ones already sung.
