Character Concept: Creepy Good Kenku?

[Riftwolf]

After reading the Kenku mimicry ability, I thought it sounded like an unsettling thing to play a cursed echolaliac who didn't speak with their own voice. Then I read how Mystics could bypass the speaking part of communication, which made it even creepier (A silent mimic who speaks to your thoughts directly), then looking at the skillsets available for Mystics and the more interesting ones were... even more unsettling? Like implanting psychic lies the target has to believe? Rewriting memories and going through days worth of surface memories? Functional invisibility by making a target forget you're there? I started putting together a creepy backstory of a Kenku trained to start wars through falsifying evidence and manipulation.
However, I'm not good at being evil. Even my current character is Neutral Evil on paper but I've yet to do anything seriously evil (I did shock the party at one point by suggesting I'd turn on them if I found out we were on opposite sides of a war). So then I thought the Kenku Mystic was fully trained to work as an infiltrator but once out of his handler's control he chose peace instead, and wanted to use his powers for benevolent purposes.
My question is: how? Can a character literally built around creepiness and layers of psychic deception use his powers to help people? Would such acts be considered good? Or lawful?
Thoughts?

[Anymage]

That's a hard skillset to turn towards good, but sabotaging evil organizations and possibly having some of their resources redirected towards good folk might count. Might not be 100% good himself (mindscrewing the bad guys is not something you generally see good groups being built around), but still able to hang with a generally heroic party without anything feeling too off.

[Arkhios]

I feel that what you propose would be somewhat similar in concept to a Good necromancer, who only uses their necromancy on bad guys, basically. Outwardly it still appears nasty and evil, but to their mindset I believe it would be 'the thought and outcome that count more than the means'.

Kind of like fighting for the Greater Good by choosing the Lesser Evil.

[Unoriginal]

It's not hard to do good with a skillset like this. There are benevolent uses to mind-reading, and if you can make people experience scenarios you craft, you basically have a mental holodeck.

Just have to make sure they know it's fiction, and you could let someone experience being a victorious general, or a spy in a pulpy story, or a singer in an opera. You could also use it to help them visualize a fight or challenge they're preparing to overcome, or see a crime scene as it was before the crime destroyed it, or let an old person relive that one summer day when they were 17...

[Riftwolf]

It's not hard to do good with a skillset like this. There are benevolent uses to mind-reading, and if you can make people experience scenarios you craft, you basically have a mental holodeck.

Just have to make sure they know it's fiction, and you could let someone experience being a victorious general, or a spy in a pulpy story, or a singer in an opera. You could also use it to help them visualize a fight or challenge they're preparing to overcome, or see a crime scene as it was before the crime destroyed it, or let an old person relive that one summer day when they were 17...

Some of the powers have Abe Sapiens (movie version) vibes like item scrying, and I like the idea of a psionic motivational coach. A legally dubious use was using mind reading to determine guilt then falsifying evidence to convict untouchable criminals. More useful in combat is Control-Misdirection and using telepathy for silent attack co-ordination. I can find ways to keep it creepy though. Like saying 'I haven't actually said anything, I just rewrote your memory to think I did', 'you're looking conflicted. Want me to find out and tell you why?' Or 'can you two stop thinking about each other so loud? It's the psychic equivalent of sharing a wall right now'

[Anymage]

It's not hard to do good with a skillset like this. There are benevolent uses to mind-reading, and if you can make people experience scenarios you craft, you basically have a mental holodeck.

Just have to make sure they know it's fiction, and you could let someone experience being a victorious general, or a spy in a pulpy story, or a singer in an opera. You could also use it to help them visualize a fight or challenge they're preparing to overcome, or see a crime scene as it was before the crime destroyed it, or let an old person relive that one summer day when they were 17...

A memory rewriter could be Good working as a therapist helping people blunt or remove traumatic memories, but "therapist" isn't really the sort of person who goes off being an adventurer PC. If a character concept doesn't justify why you'd want to continue going on adventures with the party (both going on adventures and sticking with/playing nice with the other PCs), you've made an interesting NPC but you're going to want to roll up a PC too.

[Danielqueue1]

Could go for the route of having been trained for all those terrible clandestine things. Then after their first mission see and feel all the pain and suffering they helped cause and turn away from that life. If your table is RP heavy you could have the character still trying to figure out what is good. How far does "for the greater good" really reach? Etc. More combat heavy campaigns need less justification, but a good redemption arc with built in plot hooks for the DM are always nice.

[Unoriginal]

A memory rewriter could be Good working as a therapist helping people blunt or remove traumatic memories, but "therapist" isn't really the sort of person who goes off being an adventurer PC.

There are plenty of fictional therapists who are heroes or adventurers. It can be useful in an adventure, and when it isn't it's still a "day job" that can provide interesting opportunities.

Maybe the PC is adventuring to get enough money to establish their business, or they're searching for someone who can legitimize their methods in the eyes of the scholar community, or one of the customers revealed a secret tantalizing enough or scary enough that they feel they have to deal with it themselves, to give a few examples.

[Anymage]

There are plenty of fictional therapists who are heroes or adventurers. It can be useful in an adventure, and when it isn't it's still a "day job" that can provide interesting opportunities.

It isn't hard to have a that sort of protagonist in a single author, single protagonist, self contained story. D&D is none of these, and attempting to carry over tropes will be clunky at best. It may not be impossible to pull off, but it's harder and more likely to create hassle for the other players than a more naturally adventure ready character.

[Riftwolf]

Could go for the route of having been trained for all those terrible clandestine things. Then after their first mission see and feel all the pain and suffering they helped cause and turn away from that life. If your table is RP heavy you could have the character still trying to figure out what is good. How far does "for the greater good" really reach? Etc. More combat heavy campaigns need less justification, but a good redemption arc with built in plot hooks for the DM are always nice.

The current game's tone doesn't really fit a super serious backstory. It's fairly tongue-in-cheek, roleplay heavy. A highly trained psychic agent provocateur being sent out to accelerate a war (currently the plot is Stop the War from Starting), then saying "Screw that for a game of soldiers", going AWOL to help civilians, and ending up being chased by their handler, really fits the game's tone.