Earliest existence: 2,400 AR
A celestial fire ripped through the upper atmosphere around 2,400 AR, a shockwave of otherworldly magic that tore through the highest peaks of The Airspire. It was a profound and immediate change that swept through the native feathered inhabitants. Their bodies straightened, the wings shriveled and twisted into new kinds of grappling limbs and their instincts were shattered and replaced by a frantic searing awareness. They had gained a mind, a soul and a will to communicate but the transformation left a terrible scar. When they tried to speak a word of their own they could only produce a perfect vacant echo of sounds they had heard. The squawk of a distant raven, the mournful creak of an icy wind, the snap of a twig beneath a paw. They were the Kenku born from a promise of sentience and cursed with a voice that was never truly theirs.
The earliest Kenku tribes were desperate resourceful figures wandering the jagged passes and rocky slopes. Survival was a relentless cold hunger. They learned to speak by patchwork by stitching together the noises of their world: a sharp crack of stone on stone to signal danger, a low growl to imply fear or a snippet of a traveler’s song to express a fleeting joy. Their cunning was their greatest tool they became unparalleled scavengers, shaping tools from rock and broken timber with their new adept hands. One of the first leaders was a matriarch known as Ripple a name earned because she mimicked the soothing consistent sound of a river hidden far below. Ripple led her small clan away from the exposed skies and into a dark hidden system of caves a place where they began the patient difficult work of carving and shaping the rough stone, the earliest sign of their future architectural mastery.
Life was a daily struggle, a silent desperate fight against the mountain’s harsh climate and its merciless predators. The Kenku could not raise an alarm of their own, they could only use the shriek of a hawk or the guttural roar of an attacking cat to warn the others. There was no law, only the sharp respect paid to the oldest the most ingenious the most ruthlessly cunning. Around 2,450 AR a builder named Anvilsong rose to prominence, his voice a perfect reproduction of a blacksmith’s hammer striking hot steel. He saw stability where others saw only the next moment of danger. Anvilsong orchestrated the weaving of rope bridges and timber platforms linking several small remote mountain ledges into a single defensible settlement. It was a crude perilous first step toward a home. Then they began to use their mimicry not just for survival but for a strange kind of art, replicating a crashing thunderstorm for a powerful narrative or a songbird’s tune to express raw emotion.
The time for simple survival was ending. In 2,458 AR Anvilsong was approached by one of the magnificent Aarakocra, Raa’shuk of the Azure Apex. Raa’shuk was a master explorer of the dizzying peaks and had spent years mapping every spire and potential building site. He had gathered a following of great builders and craftsmen who shared a grand vision for a single permanent home high in The Airspire. He looked at Anvilsong’s desperate ingenuity and saw the raw material he needed to make that impossible vision a reality.
For a more complete history to present day, see Skyhaven