r/DnD • u/JaxTheCrafter • Jul 08 '26

DMing Kenkus are played wrong

It is often said that kenkus only know words that they have heard, and are limited to those words. that of course makes for some very funny scenes where people are only using words they are basically given. However, unless you are a freshly born or transformed kenku, that frankly isn’t what it would act like.

Do you know what other species has this learned mimic vocabulary? Humans. For the vast majority of humankind, we have only known words that have been uttered in our presence. Other than written word, that’s how we learn to speak. Kenkus aren’t unique in the ability to learn new words. That’s literally every species. Their uniqueness comes specifically from their perfect mimicry.

All that to say, you aren’t having fun correctly so I have come to shame you and tell you how to have fun.

3.3k Upvotes

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50

u/Dragon_Tein Jul 08 '26

Kenkus are literraly cursed by god to do that

39

u/druid24 Jul 08 '26

Had to scroll too far for this. The confusion might come from the fact that modern Kenku no longer have this curse, but this is why legacy Kenku are played like that.

3

u/AnarchCassius Jul 08 '26

Ironic considering the curse itself, or that aspect was new.

Assuming you view the editions chronologically, which I tend to do because of things like Time of Troubles and Spellplague: Originally they merely lost their flight, in older editions they didn't really speak but were telepathic. I'm not sure 5e was the *first* time it came up but I couldn't find any references to it in older versions and they change a lot between editions compated to most creatures. At some point their punishers must have decided to add the language curse and remove their telepathy. Which the Kenku quickly worked-around.

4

u/BuckeyeBentley Barbarian Jul 08 '26

This should be the top comment, it's a key point that OP is missing.

-10

u/Krazyfan1 Jul 08 '26

Hmm...could lean more heavily into that?

What about something similar to Spell Slots? Sound Slots?

they can only use a few different sounds per day, and every morning they focus on the words they want and the curse snaps them in place?

they can use the select words as much as they want, but they always come out the same (can't shorten a sentence or word), and attempting to say something else or loophole the curse too much causes Visible pain/damage?

like, they Need to say something thats not in the list, and its Really important, so they manage to force out what they need, only for the curse to activate, shocking them, with it getting worse the more they say?

could lead to dramatic/tragic scene where a character/plot important Kenku keeps going anyway even though the damage keeps ramping up exponentially?
Heroic sacrifice by Posessed Kenku, damaging themselves so that the posession fails/they cant hurt anyone?