Need help roleplaying a Kenku, specifically voice.

[Clumsyninja23]

So I'm playing a Kenku Sorcerer in a monster campaign right now. I had the cool idea to really get into character with the "no speech, only mimicry" thing that they have going on, but I'm finding it really difficult to do so. I'm not the only one in the group that has something like this. The Animated Armor doesn't talk at all, and is actually carrying a white board (chalk board in game) to write simple phrases on, like "Talk to elf?" or "Strange noises", etc. He also does gestures and pantomiming and I think it works really well. (He still actually talks during meta things mind you, like saying his roles and actions, but in game is all non-verbal)

My issue is speech in particular. He is one of the bigger talkers in the group, and has the highest charisma score. I just don't know how to go about bringing in the Kenku aspect into talking. I starting with trying to make every phrase I said have a different voice, changing pitch, tone, speed, etc., even changing mid sentence. But it doesn't feel like a tape recorder effect to me. I want it to seem like he's piecing together phrases and words he's heard to talk to people, but all theory towards how to do it falls to the wayside when we actually get to talking and I just end up talking like normal. Does anyone have any advice with something like this?

[DiceDiceBaby]

Use an actual tape recorder? :smallsmile:

EDIT: Oh right, we live in a new-fangled digital age. Get an MP3 player and take recordings or downloads of 1 to 2 second clips of the 100 most commonly used words in the English language (and a few mundane sounds), spoken and pronounced by different people and sources, and make a comprehensive list, noting the numbers for each one. Use this to piece together simple sentences.

Examples:

Track 1 - There (spoken by an Irishman)
Track 2 - And (spoken by an American Woman)
Track 3 - Carrot (spoken by Steven Blum)
Track 4 - Was (spoken by Justin Trudeau)

And so on... playing Tracks 2, 1, 4, and 3 in succession will lead to "And There Was Carrot". One Kenku became famous on You Tube for creating "Call Me Maybe" using nothing but speech clips of Barack Obama.

For added fun, use homonyms (words that sound like other words, but are spelled differently); note that "There" and "Their" are pronounced the same way. Makes even more sentences available... say more with less! :smallsmile:

[Grey Watcher]

Rather than trying to give each individual word or sentence a single mimicry thing, attach it to something broader like mood or subject matter: if the Kenku is angry, they mimic the voice of the shrill angry barmaid they met once; if they're talking about magic, they use the voice of the stuffy old wizard who was their tutor.

There's some old campaign journals from a user called SilverClawShift kicling around this sote. There's an NPC I'm one of them who is a shifter who is also mute. She adopts various faces to express anger or sadness or whatever. Your kenku might do something similar with voices.

[ad_hoc]

I just started a game playing a Kenku. As I also lack the ability to mimic speech and sounds perfectly I narrate it.

Here is an example that happened last session:

"I make the sound of someone walking downstairs to indicate that we should search the basement."

[Asha Leu]

The mimicry trait both makes me very curious and very wary about playing a Kenku - it seems like a *lot* of work to pull off effectively, but if done right could make for a really enjoyable roleplay experience.

My approach would probably be the following:

Make up a vocabulary list my character prior to play, with a bunch of different sounds and phrases for different situations - ie. "Aye" in the voice of a gruff dwarf, "No, thank you" as spoken by a female noble, orcish insults and threats, and so on until I've got a list that seems like a pretty comprehensive list of everything the Kenku has heard so far.

The difficult part would be incorporating dialogue spoken once the game starts - either by taking notes religiously or just constantly recording the audio of everything in game. But being able to genuinely mimic stuff that NPCs and players have said so far would really make all the difference in my view.

[Clumsyninja23]

@Dice: I like that idea, but it causes the problem of time consumption. If I wanted to respond to, say, a person asking my business with the mayor was, it could be time consuming to queue up "Horde of skeletons approaching the city" or similar every time. Although it could be circumvented (and would fit) to do something like "Monsters approach". This could be a workable solution, and I'll keep it in mind.

@Grey: I really like that idea! I'll be using that one.

@AdHoc: I never considered doing non-voice sounds as my speech! That's a great idea! I'll start looking for opportunities to use this.

@Asha: That has the same problem of being time consuming. Flipping pages in a journal (or word document) to see how to construct a sentence would take ages. But coming up with a few to keep in mind that he might use a lot, like your example of "Aye" and "no, thank you" is a good idea.

[Joe the Rat]

What we have here is failure to communicate.
It's like he's trying to say something.
It's something I heard, that somebody purred.
Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?

Communicate in quotes and snippets. You don't need the range if you can deliver your thoughts through what is recognizably someone else's words.
You can probably double your Python output that way.

[JellyPooga]

I would decide on two or three "favoured" voices...the nobleman he met once who, although a toffee-nosed uppity aristocrat, had a silken voice; the gruff orc whose voice like molasses; the cheeky halfling con-man who once convinced a crowd to buy his wares...so on and so forth. Voices your Kenku has encountered and liked and mimics habitually, dependant on his mood. The other players might (should?) come to learn your mood by the voice you use, but it also gives you a limited pool of voices to learn. Smatter in a few odd-balls, including any distinctive voices the GM uses for NPCs, but stick to your "usuals" for the most part.

Doing one "funny accent" is hard enough. Doing a different one every other sentence is a practical impossibility and will also become more an annoyance for both you and the other players, especially as a social character.

[Toadkiller]

I am Groot.

[Sir cryosin]

Go to YouTube look up threshold in the newer games they have a player using a aarakocra stats but is really playing kenku. He only talkes using what he has heard. Which is uselly small phrases or words. Go watch that it should help you figure out how you want to approach how your character talks.

[Madbox]

I played a kenku for a one shot. What I found to be effective was to try to think of the concept I wanted to convey, and find a similar concept I could convey with just sounds and gestures, and minimal words.

For instance, to ask if the undead we were being sent after were zombies or vampires, I said " Is it" in a small child's voice, then held out my arms and groaned (zombie), then said "Or", then mimicked pulling a cape in front of me and hissed (vampire).

To ask how strong the npc we were sent to rescue was, I said "Is she", then made, in succession, the sounds of a kitten mewling, a cat meowing, and a lion roaring.

Of course, playing charades like this requires a way to indicate correct and incorrect answers. I went with a bell sound and pointing at someone if they were right, and a buzzing sound and quickly jerking my hand from left to right if they were wrong.

[Grey Watcher]

I am Groot.

Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.:smallamused:

[JackOfAllBuilds]

The mobile phone soundboards from realmofdarkness?