Kenku's Curses

[Falcos]

Hi all!

So Kenku are, as a race, cursed with three terrible terrible curses.

First, they no longer have wings.
Second, they have had their creativity stripped from them.
Third, they no longer have voices.

The first just brings them down to the level of most player races, and the third is mostly worked around with their Mimicry trait - but I am at a complete loss how to roleplay a lack of creativity.
Anything I can come up with, my brain is flagging as "creative". I am at a complete loss.

Also, one of my players latched onto the idea of trying to break the Kenku curse - which I am also at a loss about.

Please help, Playground?

[Frozenstep]

Rather then roleplay the lack of something, roleplay the abundance of something else. Have Kenkus clearly copy another, or make it clear anytime they do something that might be seen as creative, make it clear it was someone else who did it front of them, and they're just copying what they remember.

You can even have it go comically wrong, like trying to copy a solution that clearly wouldn't work in the current situation.

[Unoriginal]

but I am at a complete loss how to roleplay a lack of creativity.

Read optimization guides, that should give you enough examples of it.


More seriously, as proved by their Mimicry ability, the Kenku are capable of creating new things with what already exists, and to learn. Many Kenku are used as spies or are members of Thieves' Guild, which generally require some level of improvisation.

They just need to have seen the pieces of their ideas somewhere before putting them together.

[Naanomi]

Most of the lack of creativity seems to be cultural expression stuff... they can brilliantly play existing songs, but will never develop their own genre... they may combine the military history of ten past commanders into a war winning strategy, but never develop an unheard of gambit of their own... they quote knowledge of a thousand learned sages, but never a wise statement of their own... they may make chocolate equal to any in the world, but would never think to add peanut butter to it.

They are the martial arts master, calling out the names of a million techniques they have mastered (flying tiger palm! Black lotus rises! Hadoken!) but never the Bruce Lee developing their own style

[Falcos]

Here we edge uncomfortably closer to the topic of "philosophy", but isn't taking a million small tactics and applying them to win a big war a kind of "creativity"?

[Anymage]

Here we edge uncomfortably closer to the topic of "philosophy", but isn't taking a million small tactics and applying them to win a big war a kind of "creativity"?

On a philosophical level, yes.

For matters of practical playability, a race unable to do anything that could ever be considered creative would be painfully dull. So try not to let RP fluff become too much of a thing.

[Naanomi]

Here we edge uncomfortably closer to the topic of "philosophy", but isn't taking a million small tactics and applying them to win a big war a kind of "creativity"?
I think Kenku have gotten so good at copying things piecemeal that the distinction is only on the large scale; not much that would come up in a career as an adventurer