The Circle of Swords Gaming Guild

The History of the Races

The Kenku

Kenku Homeland: Eagle's Loft

In the beginning, when life created all the creatures of his plane, air watched. He liked what life had done and decided to create his own creatures. First, he created the elements. He made them strong and powerful but they lacked the intelligence of the creatures of life. So, he tried again and created a race that he called the kenku. They are a race of humanoids with the body of a man and the head and wings of a bird. They are very brightly colored. They were not as powerful as the Elementals, but what they lacked in power, they made up in intelligence. Again, he was pleased with his creations and continued to create other creatures, these are what have become to be known as 'air-type creatures'. The kenku were by far the most intelligent creatures and the closest to life's humans of all the creatures that air created. Armed with their superior intellect, the kenku soon became the rulers of elemental plane of air.

As the rulers of the air, They separated into houses. Each house ruled a Particular area and lead armies of elementals. They used rocs as beasts of burden and mounts of war. The houses fought among themselves for centuries, just as human have done. They fought for many different reasons, but the biggest reason of all was to defend the honor of their house and family name. All this continued until about a thousand years ago, until the migration occurred.

The Great Migration, as it has become to be known to those of the plane of air, was when a small faction of kenku, left the plane of air to live in the prime material plane, the plane of life. They had grown tired of the constant fighting and wanted a change of life style. This is where the histories split, for there are actually two types of kenku, those native to the plane of air or Planer Kenku and those native to the prime material plane or Groundlings.

The Planar Kenku
The migration made them realize the pettiness of their arguments. So, they settled most of their differences and, for the most part, lived in peace. All was well for about 400 years. During this time, the planer kenku developed haughty and ignorant attitudes toward all creatures but themselves. Being the leaders of an entire plane for so many centuries tends to do that to an ego. They became relaxed in their environment and began to let their guard down.

It was at this point that the intelligence of the rocs began to develop. Over the next 500 hundred years, they changed. They became intelligent enough that realized that they were essentially slaves to the kenku. For the next fifty years or so, the rocs began to resist the orders of the kenku and organize themselves. Now, within the past fifty years, the rocs have risen up against the kenku and the plane of air is once again at war with itself.

The Groundlings
The groundling kenku found a portal to another plane, one which they did not even know that existed. They had grown tired of the ways of the planer kenku and decided to take their chances in this new found world. They wanted nothing to do with the kenku, so they collapsed the portal back to the plane of air after they crossed to the prime material plane. This was a rash decision and was the their biggest mistake.

Once here, they found several strange things. Among them earth magic and solid ground. They adapted, with some difficulty, but still they adapted. They also had some difficulty with the creatures here, they hated them. They wandered the world looking for some place to call home. Somewhere where they could live alone in peace. They encountered creatures here and their reactions to them soon earned the reputation of being evil, though they truly were not. Eventually, they found a place away from the humanoids of this realm and, after 500 years of wandering, settled they settled far north of Barlow in the caves they found there. They only left their caves when they required something that they could not provide for themselves. And, when they did leave, their reputation would not permit them to trade with the surrounding humanoids, so they could only resort to thievery. Their actions again built upon their reputation as an evil race of thieves. Plus, their natural curiosity didn't help this much. But, otherwise, they lived quite happily for 250 years until they encountered the Drow. The caves that they settled in were within the boundaries of the underdark.

The Drow watched them from the time they first entered the caverns until that day, 250 years later, when they approached the groundlings. During this 250 years of study, the Drow discovered that they had much in common with the groundlings; a bad reputation, hatred of the surface dwellers, and evil (even though the groundlings really weren't). So, the Drow approached the groundlings offering an alliance. Together, with the magical power of the Drow and the flight and ability to enter the daylight, the two races would be unstoppable.

But again, the groundlings hated the humanoid races, including the Drow. So needless to say, they refused. This angered the Drow. If they couldn't have them peacefully, then they would take them by force and breed their own 'new breed.' The war that followed lasted for nearly 200 years. Many groundlings were slain. And, in the end, the Drow captured the remaining groundlings, enslaving them for ten long years.

During this time, the Drow tried breeding the groundlings. But a neutral house (the house we now call the good house) realized the consequences of these actions. They freed the groundlings and stopped the experiment. The groundlings left the caverns never to return. They met a humanoid named lord Silvermane. He told them of an island to the east, where they would be safe and could live in peace. So they began to migrate there.

On this trip, there came across another kenku, laying slain in the forest. They healed him and discovered that he was a planer lord, brought here against his will. But, he had no desire to go back. His name was lord Phoenix Tzar. The groundling looked at this as another gift from Silvermane and accepted phoenix as their leader. He lead them to the isle were they live today. They have decided to repay lord Silvermane by giving him their loyalty and respect him as all of life's creatures do. Lord Silvermane in turn treats them as one of life's creatures.

Kenku font example

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