A Question on Tengu
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Recently I have been engaging myself in a bit of Dominions 3. I love that game for its portrayal of different creatures, the different races and cultures. Most recently I played a Samurai "Culture" and I suddenly realized that their Monks are capable of summoning Tengu. I read the description of the Tengu being bird-like features, and capable swordsmen, so I wanted to read up more. I checked Wikipedia for some details and it was rather intriguing what the Tengu were, even if the game portrayed them as mainly the protective war-like creatures, and not demons of mischief (and good).
Then another thing struck me, we have Tengu on Arabel, and in Faerun in general, but the difference between the Tengu in Japanese culture and those on our server appears to be mildly big. From my own observations the Tengu on the server appear to be on the level of Goblins/Kobolds. Meanwhile in Kara-Tur/Real Life they appeared to be far more… "refined" is perhaps the word I am looking for, and certainly not sewer dwellers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengu
http://www.lomion.de/cmm/tengu.php
I am just curious, why such a design decision? I am not arguing that they have to be changed or anything, but it's just an odd portrayal of a race/creature/myth. I did not even realise, back when I was playing my Ronin on S3, that the Tengu were a Kara-Tur thing, I assumed they were some magical addition from all the Lyss/Ruin events we had.
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Kenkus, which are the things in the sewer, are pretty standardly portrayed really. They're a thieving race that often congragate in slums and sewery areas when in urban enviroments. This is DnD canon, and pretty much the same thing as a "Tengu" from Pathfinder canon.
My guess is that that they simply drifted from the inspiration from the creatures, which seems to be the Tengu thing from Japanese mythology.
Maybe this Kara Turan "Tengus" are another thing, no idea on that.
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My bad! I completely mixed up the names, they sound a lot alike (Tengu/Kenku).
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Sure you don't mean these guys?
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Those are Tenga's forte not Tengu's