# Race: Birdfolk > [!info] Quick Facts > | | | > |---|---| > | **Rarity** | Very rare | > | **Perception in Gryth** | Neutral. Met with curiosity more than anything else. | > | **Subraces** | [[#Parrot-Kin\|Parrot-Kin]], [[#Dove-Kin\|Dove-Kin]] | > | **Guide Section** | Very Rare Races | ## Overview Birdfolk are one of Gryth’s three avian peoples, and the only one that unarguably began here. They have humanoid bodies and the heads and feather patterns of many different birds, and they vary more between one community and the next than either of the others do. The two most prominent lineages are the parrot-kin of [[Continent - Q'Shar|Q’Shar]], loud and vividly coloured, and a small population of dove and pigeon-kin in [[Continent - Iros|Iros]]. They are rare enough that most people in Gryth have heard of them without ever having seen one, and are met with curiosity rather than suspicion. ## Three Peoples, Not One Birdfolk, aarakocra and kenku are routinely grouped together, and the grouping is a convenience rather than a fact. They are separate species with separate origins, resembling one another the way a hawk resembles a crow. The aarakocra are widely thought to have come from the Plane of Air. The kenku are native to Q’Shar, but nobody agrees on how they came to be cursed, and the few accounts that exist are unpleasant. The birdfolk are the straightforward case. They evolved on Gryth, and the records say so: chronicles from the Age of Kings speak of the “Feathered folk of the lands afar”, the oldest written reference to any avian people and unmistakably a description of birdfolk rather than their cousins. They were there, in those lands, doing much as they do now, while the kingdoms writing about them were still new. Of the other two, birdfolk say little. The kenku they will not discuss at all. ## The Voice Birdfolk sing from before they can walk, and they sing constantly: to mark territory, to greet a stranger, to grieve, to agree terms. A settlement is audible long before it is visible, and most of what a community knows about itself is carried in song rather than writing. A bargain is held to be struck when both parties have sung it back. Alongside the singing, the parrot-kin have a gift for mimicry. They can reproduce almost anything they have heard, a voice, a lock turning, a particular person’s laugh, and they do it from childhood without being taught. Outsiders find it deeply strange to be answered in their own voice by something that is not them. ## Gentle, Curious, and Hard to Hold Birdfolk are gentle by disposition. They keep no warriors, have never taken part in anybody’s war, and are driven instead by a curiosity close to insatiable: a birdfolk will follow a strange sound for three days and remember every answer in a song. That curiosity has an edge. Their attention is total while it lasts and gone completely when it ends, and they will take up a stranger, a trade or a town with delight and set it down a season later without any sense of having been unkind. Those left behind find it cruel. Birdfolk are bewildered by the accusation. The song finished. ## Alone, Until Recently Birdfolk have kept to themselves for most of recorded history, in small settlements that are hard to reach and uninterested in trade. They have no cities, no kingdoms and nothing anybody has thought worth taking, and so were simply left alone. That is changing by accident, as parrot-kin turn up abroad as performers and dove-kin carry post across Iros, though most of those who meet one take them for a stray aarakocra or an odd sort of kenku. ## Birdfolk Traits **Ability Score Increase.** Your Dexterity score increases by 2. Your lineage increases another score. **Age.** Birdfolk reach maturity by age 10 and live around 80 years. **Creature Type.** You are a Humanoid. **Size.** You are Medium or Small. You choose the size when you select this race. **Speed.** Your walking speed is 30 feet. **Flight.** Because of your wings, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed. You cannot use this flying speed if you are wearing medium or heavy armour. **Talons.** You have sharp claws that you can use to make unarmed strikes. When you hit with them, the strike deals 1d6 + your Strength modifier slashing damage, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. **Birdsong.** Your voice is your inheritance. You gain proficiency in the Performance skill, and you have advantage on Charisma (Performance) checks made to sing. Starting at 3rd level, you can cast the *charm person* spell with this trait, requiring no material components. Once you cast it with this trait, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest. You can also cast it using any spell slots you have of 1st level or higher. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for it. **Languages.** You can speak, read, and write Common and Auran. ## Subraces ### Parrot-Kin Parrot-kin hold the forest canopies of Q’Shar in colours that can be picked out at half a mile. They are the loud half of the race by a wide margin, and they sing at each other rather than to each other, several at once, apparently without anybody losing the thread. They are also the birdfolk most likely to be met abroad, usually because somebody heard one performing and paid for the privilege. **Rarity:** Very rare **Perception in Gryth.** Neutral. Impossible to ignore, hard to dislike, and generally treated as a spectacle rather than a person. #### Parrot-Kin Traits **Ability Score Increase.** Your Charisma score increases by 1. **Vivid Plumage.** You gain proficiency in the Persuasion skill. **Perfect Mimicry.** You can mimic any voice or sound you have heard within the last 24 hours. A creature that hears the sounds can tell they are imitations with a successful Wisdom (Insight) check opposed by your Charisma (Deception) check. ### Dove-Kin Dove-kin keep to the scattered oases and long empty roads of Iros, drab beside their cousins and content to be. Their singing is a low rolling call built to cross distance rather than impress a room. They travel constantly and they never get lost, which has made them messengers, guides and the only reliable post in several hundred miles of desert. **Rarity:** Very rare **Perception in Gryth.** Neutral. Quiet, useful and easily overlooked, which suits them. #### Dove-Kin Traits **Ability Score Increase.** Your Wisdom score increases by 1. **Long Road.** You gain proficiency in the Insight or Survival skill, your choice. **Carrying Call.** Your call carries much further than other voices. Creatures can hear and understand you clearly at up to 600 feet, or up to 1 mile in open, quiet country, even when they cannot see you. **Homing Instinct.** You always know the exact direction and distance to any place where you have spent at least one long rest, provided it is on the same plane of existence. ## Connections - [[Continent - Q'Shar]] — Home of the parrot-kin, in the forest canopies - [[Continent - Iros]] — Home of the dove-kin, along its oases and desert roads --- ## Gallery ![[Race - Birdfolk.jpg]] --- *See also: [[Races]]*