Tengus are a gregarious and resourceful people that have spread far and wide, collecting and combining whatever innovations and traditions they happen across with those from their own long history.
Tengus are survivalists and conversationalists, equally at home living off the wilderness and finding a niche in dense cities. They accumulate knowledge, tools, and companions, adding them to their collection as they travel.
The tengu diaspora has spread across Aerth in search of a better life, bringing their skill with blade crafting to lands far from their home. In maritime regions, tengus notably work as fishers, blacksmiths, and “jinx eaters”— members of ships’ crews who are believed, accurately or otherwise, to absorb misfortune. Having lived in a variety of conditions and locations, tengus tend to be nonjudgmental, especially with regard to social station, though their willingness to associate with lawbreakers has often led some to look at them with suspicion.
If you want to play a character hailing from a rich history of artisanship and tradition, but who happily picks up new practices, companions, words, and items as needed, you should play a tengu.
Physical Description
Tengus have many avian characteristics. Their faces are tipped with sharp beaks and their scaled forearms and lower legs end in talons. As closed footwear tends to fit poorly unless custom made, many tengus wear open sandals or simply go barefoot. Tengus are rarely more than 5 feet tall, and they are even lighter than their smaller frames would suggest, as they have hollow bones.
Tengus hatch from eggs and are featherless for their first year of life, during which they rarely leave home. They soon grow a downy gray coat, which is replaced by a dark covering of adult feathers by the time they come of age at around 15 years. Tengus use their shed feathers in a variety of tools, from simple writing quills to magical fans to focus their ancestral magic. Many tengus modify their appearance by dyeing patterns into their feathers or talons, which amplifies their body language and has the added benefit of aiding other humanoids in understanding their expressions.
Society
Tengus are extremely social, banding together in extended communities with many families living in adjacent houses and sharing the work of the household. In cities, a community may also contain members of other ancestries. Tengu children raised in the same unit consider each other siblings, usually forgetting which of them share a biological connection.
Religion
Tengus often follow the faith of the region in which they were raised, though many tengus focus their attention on gods of freedom and trave or deities of nature.
Before their diaspora, tengus practiced a syncretic faith that blended a polytheistic worship of the deities responsible for creating the natural world. As tengu folklore posits that tengus long ago descended from the night sky on shooting stars to rest upon Aerth's highest peaks, animist rites were practiced on mountains and other great natural features. Even today, tengus rarely differentiate between divine and primal worship.
Adventurers
A tengu that leaves their home feels an intense pull toward adventure, to cross vast distances, collect beautiful treasures, and brave the challenges of combat or the rolling sea. Tengu backgrounds might reflect their place in the homeland or the tengu diaspora. These could include acrobat, bandit, barkeep, charlatan, courier, emissary, entertainer, fortune teller, gambler, merchant, nomad, refugee, sailor, or scavenger. Tengus often become rogue, bard, oracles, rangers, or swashbucklers.
Names
Though many tengus tend toward more traditional names with the hard consonants, tengus’ tendency to readily absorb and repurpose the culture of those around them has led to names that combine elements of whatever languages suited the namer’s fancy.
Sample Names
Arkkak, Chuko, Dolgra, Dorodara, Kakkariel, Kora, Marrak, Mossarah, Pularrka, Rarorel, Ruk, Tak-Tak, Tsukotarra
Tengu Mechanics
Traits
Humanoid, Tengu
Hit Points
6
Size
Medium
Speed
25 feet
Ability Boosts
Dexterity, Free
Languages
Common
Additional languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if it's positive). Choose from Mwangi, Runic, Sylvan, and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent in your region).
Low-Light Vision
You can see in dim light as though it were bright light, so you ignore the concealed condition due to dim light.
Sharp Beak
With your sharp beak, you are never without a weapon. You have a beak unarmed attack that deals 1d6 piercing damage. Your beak is in the brawling weapon group and has the finesse and unarmed traits.
Tengu Heritages
Versatile Heritages
You select a heritage at 1st level to reflect abilities passed down to you from your ancestors or common among those of your ancestry in the environment where you were born or grew up. You have only one heritage and can’t change it later. A heritage is not the same as a culture or ethnicity, though some cultures or ethnicities might have more or fewer members from a particular heritage.
Dogtooth Tengu
In addition to a beak, your mouth also features a number of vicious, pointed teeth. Some legends claim your powerful jaws can even bite through steel. While you aren't that strong yet, your fangs can still leave terrible wounds. Your beak unarmed attack gains the deadly d8 trait.
Jinxed Tengu
Your lineage has been exposed to curse after curse, and now, they slide off your feathers like rain. If you succeed at a saving throw against a curse or misfortune effect, you get a critical success instead. When you would gain the doomed condition, attempt a DC 17 flat check. On a success, reduce the value of the doomed condition you would gain by 1.
Mountainkeeper Tengu
You come from a line of tengu ascetics, leaving you with a link to the spirits of the world and the Great Beyond. You can cast the disrupt undead cantrip as a primal innate spell at will. A cantrip is heightened to a spell level equal to half your level rounded up. Each time you cast a spell from a tengu heritage or ancestry feat, you can decide whether it’s a divine or primal spell.
Skyborn Tengu
Your bones may be especially light, you may be a rare tengu with wings, or your connection to the spirits of wind and sky might be stronger than most, slowing your descent through the air. You take no damage from falling, regardless of the distance you fall.
Stormtossed Tengu
Whether due to a blessing from Hei Feng or hatching from your egg during a squall, you are resistant to storms. You gain electricity resistance equal to half your level (minimum 1). You automatically succeed at the flat check to target a concealed creature if that creature is concealed only by rain or fog.
Taloned Tengu
Your talons are every bit as sharp and strong as your beak. You gain a talons unarmed attack that deals 1d4 slashing damage. Your talons are in the brawling group and have the agile, finesse, unarmed, and versatile piercing traits.
Wavediver Tengu
You're one of the rare tengu who can cut through water like a bird through air, and you often lurk in rivers or oceans where few expect you. You gain a swim Speed of 15 feet.
Tengu Feats
At 1st level, you gain one ancestry feat.
Dogfang Bite (Feat 1)
Tengu |
Prerequisites dogtooth tengu heritage
You can swing your beak to slash your foes when piercing attacks won't do. Your beak unarmed attack gains the versatile S weapon trait.
Eat Fortune [R] (Feat 1)
Tengu | Concentrate | Divination | Divine |
Frequency once per day
As someone tries to twist fate, you consume the interference. The triggering effect is disrupted. If it's a misfortune effect, Eat Fortune gains the fortune trait; if it's a fortune effect, Eat Fortune gains the misfortune trait. This fortune or misfortune applies to the same roll the triggering effect would have, so you couldn't negate a fortune effect with Eat Fortune and then apply a misfortune effect to the same roll.
Mariner's Fire (Feat 1)
Tengu |
You conjure uncanny orbs of spiritual flame that float above or below the water's surface. You can cast the produce flame cantrip as a primal innate spell at will, heightened to a spell level equal to half your level rounded up. You can cast this cantrip underwater.
Squawk! [R] (Feat 1)
Tengu |
Trigger You critically fail a Deception, Diplomacy, or Intimidation check against a creature that doesn't have the tengu trait
You let out an awkward squawk, ruffle your feathers, or fake some other birdlike tic to cover up a social misstep or faux pas. You get a failure on the triggering check, rather than a critical failure. All creatures that witnessed you Squawk are temporarily immune for 24 hours.
Storm's Lash (Feat 1)
Tengu |
Wind and lightning have always been close friends to you. You can cast the electric arc cantrip as a primal innate spell at will. A cantrip is heightened to a spell level equal to half your level rounded up.
Tengu Lore (Feat 1)
Tengu |
You learned skills for surviving in the place where your people were dispersed. You gain the trained proficiency rank in Society and Survival. If you would automatically become trained in one of those skills (from your background or class, for example), you instead become trained in a skill of your choice. You also become trained in Tengu Lore.
Tengu Weapon Familiarity (Feat 1)
Tengu |
You've trained with a blade and other tengu weapons ever since you hatched. You gain access to khakkaras. Additionally, choose two weapons from the sword group. You can choose from among all common martial swords, plus the katana, temple sword, and wakizashi. For the purpose of determining your proficiency, that weapon is a simple weapon, and if the weapon isn't common, you gain access to it. If you are trained in all martial weapons, you add common advanced swords to the swords you can choose from.
You also gain access to all uncommon tengu weapons. For the purpose of determining your proficiency, martial tengu weapons are simple weapons, and advanced tengu weapons are martial weapons.
Whenever you gain a class feature that grants you expert or greater proficiency in certain weapons, you also gain that proficiency for any weapon in which you became trained in because of this feat.
At 5th level, whenever you critically hit using any weapon you became trained in due to this feat, you apply the weapon's critical specialization effect.
Uncanny Agility (Feat 1)
Tengu |
You have near-supernatural poise that lets you move swiftly across the most unsteady surfaces. You gain the Parkour feat. You can Step into difficult terrain caused by uneven ground, such as a rocky field or hilly incline.
Waxed Feathers (Feat 1)
Tengu |
Prerequisites wavediver tengu heritage
Your feathers are coated in a waxy substance that repels water. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus to saving throws against effects that have the water trait. So long as you're in a dry place, you can spend one action to shake off any water that clings to your clothing and feathers to instantly become dry.
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