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TENGU

ANCESTRY

UNCOMMON

MEDIUM

HUMANOID

TENGU

Hit Points 6

Size Medium; Speed 25 feet

Ability Boosts Dexterity, Free

Languages Common, Tengu

Additional Languages equal to your Intelligence modifier (if positive). Choose from Dwarven, Elven, Halfling, Gnomish, Goblin, Sylvan, and any other languages to which you have access (such as the languages prevalent in your region).

Senses Low-Light Vision

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.

Tengus are a gregarious and resourceful people that have spread far and wide from their ancestral home in Tian Xia, 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 Golarion 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.

You Might...

  • Be gregarious and eager to find a flock of your own.
  • Voraciously absorb the practices of those around you, sometimes even forgetting where they came from.
  • Be willing to take on any task or job, no matter what others think.

Others Probably...

  • Look to you as a source of eclectic skills and knowledge, especially relating to languages.
  • Get confused by your simultaneous respect for and disregard of tradition.
  • Have trouble reading your expressions or regard you with suspicion and superstition.

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. A small number of tengus have vestigial wings incapable of true flight.

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.

The greatest divide in tengu society is between tengus remaining in their ancestral home and those who have dispersed across the world. Tengus refer to these two groups as those “in the roost” and those “migrating,” respectively. Roosted tengus tend to be more traditionalist and conservative and are especially concerned with preserving their culture in the face of years of erosion from oppression. Migrating tengus, on the other hand, voraciously absorb the culture of the various nations and settlements that they now call home.

Alignment and Religion

Tengus often follow the faith of the region in which they were raised, though the tengu ancestral deity is the storm god Hei Feng. This god’s notorious drunken carousing and emotional swings causes many tengus to instead focus their attention on gods of freedom and travel, such as Desna or Cayden Cailean, or deities of nature, such as Gozreh. Besmara is also a common subject of tengu worship, especially among tengus who live on the sea. More about Besmara and Hei Feng can be found in Lost Omens Gods and Magic (pages 55 and 63).

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 Golarion’s highest peaks, animist rites were practiced on mountains and other great natural features. Even today, tengus rarely differentiate between divine and primal worship.

Tengus are far more concerned with the balance between traditionalism and adaptability than they are with good and evil, with lawful tengus more common among the roosted and chaotic tengus more common among the migratory.

Names

Though roosted tengus tend toward more traditional names with the hard consonants often seen in the Tengu language, migrating 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

TABLE 1: TENGU HERITAGES
Exclusive Heritages Description
dogtooth tenguLOAG In addition to a beak, your mouth also features a number of vicious, pointed teeth.
jinxed tenguAPG Your lineage has been exposed to curse after curse, and now, they slide off your feathers like rain.
mountainkeeper tenguAPG You come from a line of tengu ascetics, leaving you with a link to the spirits of the world and the Great Beyond.
skyborn tenguAPG 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.
stormtossed tenguAPG Whether due to a blessing from Hei Feng or hatching from your egg during a squall, you are resistant to storms.
taloned tenguAPG Your talons are every bit as sharp and strong as your beak.
wavediver tenguLOAG 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.
Versatile Heritages Description
AasimarAPG You descend from celestials or were touched by the celestial realms, gaining an air of awe and grace, as well as features distinctive to your celestial forebears.
AphoriteLOAG You were born with a connection to Axis, the Plane of Law.
ArdandeRE Your elemental heritage is reflected in the oils and fragrances of plants, in tree resin that fossilizes into amber, or in the gentle smell of a flower.
BeastkinLOAG The blood of a beast flows through your veins, granting you the ferocity and might of animals.
ChangelingAPG Your mother was a hag.
DhampirAPG You are the scion of a vampire, half living and half undead, gifted with uncanny charm and grace, a bloodless pallor, and elongated incisors.
DuskwalkerAPG Thanks to an ancient bargain, your soul has been reborn as a duskwalker, a planar scion with a connection to psychopomps and the Boneyard.
GanziLOAG Your blood is touched by primal chaos.
IfritLOAG You descend from fire elementals or bear the mark of the Inner Spheres, and your features illustrate the influence that elemental fire has over you.
OreadLOAG An earth elemental ancestor has influenced your bloodline, and your features highlight this elemental planar connection.
ReflectionDA You were created as a duplicate of another creature, intentionally or accidentally, though you might not know of your origins.
SuliLOAG You are descended from a janni or otherwise embody a dichotomy of opposing elemental planar forces.
SylphLOAG You are descended from air elementals or were born under the element’s influence.
TalosRE Your physical features reflect the influence a zuhra or other metal elemental has had over your bloodline.
TieflingAPG You descend from fiends or bear the mark of the fiendish realms, manifesting as some unusual feature that belies your heritage, such as horns or a tail.
UndineLOAG A water elemental ancestor influences your bloodline.
draconic scionBAD You possess the power of dragons, whether you descended from dragons, learned from dragons, were transformed by exposure to draconic energy, or reincarnated from a past life as a dragon.
TABLE 2: TENGU ANCESTRY FEATS
Level 1 Tengu Feats Prerequisites Benefits
rLet’s Try That AgainSG-04 — You feel a sense of deja vu when you’ve made a mistake, almost as if you weren’t so careless in a past life and could certainly do better if given another chance.
rLike a RoachSG-04 — Living with the bare necessities isn’t terribly hard for someone who has defied death, and like a cockroach, you always know how to survive.
Mariner’s FireLOAG — You conjure uncanny orbs of spiritual flame that float above or below the water’s surface.
Scavenger’s SearchAPG — You’re always on the lookout for supplies and valuables.
Squawk!APG — You let out an awkward squawk, ruffle your feathers, or fake some other birdlike tic to cover up a social misstep or faux pas.
Storm’s LashAPG — Wind and lightning have always been close friends to you.
Tengu LoreAPG — You learned skills for surviving in the place where your people were dispersed.
Tengu Weapon FamiliarityAPG — You’ve trained with a blade and other tengu weapons ever since you hatched.
Uncanny AgilityLOAG — You have near-supernatural poise that lets you move swiftly across the most unsteady surfaces.
Waxed FeathersLOAG wavediver tengu heritage Your feathers are coated in a waxy substance that repels water.
rWeight of ExperienceSG-04 — The experience you’ve accumulated over multiple lifetimes envelops you like a weighted blanket, providing comfort and bestowing confidence under pressure.
rWisdom From Another LifeSG-04 — You absorbed a wide variety of facts before you died, and your soul still remembers slivers of this precious knowledge.
Level 5 Tengu Feats Prerequisites Benefits
rAnimal Soul SiblingsSG-04 — Your eyes have been opened to the spiritual essence suffusing the world.
Dogfang BiteLOAG dogtooth tengu heritage You can swing your beak to slash your foes when piercing attacks won’t do.
Eat FortuneAPG — As someone tries to twist fate, you consume the interference.
rEmpathy IncarnateSG-04 — Reincarnation has given you a compassionate perspective and enabled you to relate to almost everyone you speak with, putting them at ease and quickly generating trust.
rFey InfluenceLOIL — You have been exposed to powerful fey magic.
rI’Ve Had Many JobsSG-04 — Finding and excelling at odd jobs is child’s play to one who has worked many occupations during many lives.
Long-Nosed FormAPG — You can transform into a specific, curious-looking human form.
Magpie SnatchLOAG — You move quickly, snatching a shiny item that catches your eye.
One-Toed HopAPG — Assuming a peculiar stance, you make a short hop on each toe.
rReincarnated RidiculerSG-04 — You’ve practiced the art of taunting an enemy, ensuring they know death will only make you stronger.
rSleep of the RebornSG-04 — Philosophers compare the cycle of life, death, and rebirth to sleeping, dreaming, and waking.
Tengu Feather FanLOAG — You’ve learned to bind some of your feathers together into a fan to focus your ancestral magic.
Tengu Weapon StudyAPG Tengu Weapon Familiarity You’ve learned techniques for using blades and other tengu weapons.
Level 9 Tengu Feats Prerequisites Benefits
rDrain EmotionLOIL Fey Influence You touch an adjacent creature and attempt to draw out its excess emotion.
Eclectic Sword TrainingAPG Tengu Weapon Familiarity You were always taught that you needed to be able to use whatever weapon came your way.
rFey AscensionLOIL Fey Influence The fey influence on your form and features grows even more powerful and notable.
rLingering EchoesSG-04 — Not everyone is reincarnated, and you feel a strong connection with the spiritual echoes of those who didn’t receive the same opportunity as you.
rPlant Soul SiblingsSG-04 Animal Soul Siblings You’re now able to connect with the spirits present in the greenery of the natural world.
rRapid RetrainingSG-04 — Some feel trapped by their choices and have a tough time reinventing themselves.
Soaring FlightAPG skyborn tengu heritage To be a tengu is to be unburdened by the concerns of the world below.
Wind God’s FanLOAG Tengu Feather Fan Your fan can stir up even more powerful winds.
rYou Seem Somewhat FamiliarSG-04 — You fought hundreds of foes in your various past lives, and now and then, something about a new opponent tugs at your memory, almost as if you defeated their grandparent long ago.
Level 13 Tengu Feats Prerequisites Benefits
rCannibalize MagicLOIL Fey Influence The fey magic inside of you is a vital part of your body, and you can steal other sources of magic to replenish yours.
rClinging to LifeSG-04 — This life still holds much for you, and you aren’t ready to fall back into the River of Souls just yet.
Eclectic Sword MasteryLOAG Eclectic Sword Training (Advanced Player’s Guide 27) You instinctively learn how to use a sword with just a few practice swings.
rEldritch CalmLOIL Fey Influence Your fey heritage has altered your mindset to more resemble the uncanny perspective of the fey.
rGlamourLOIL Fey Influence You unlock a new level of fey power and can manipulate the perceptions of others using a font of First World magic.
Harbinger’s CawLOAG — You caw ominously, cursing the creature with misfortune.
rI Sense MalevolenceSG-04 — Your time in theRiver of Souls has given you deep insight into the machinations of those who refuse to move on.
Jinx GluttonLOAG Eat Fortune (Advanced Player’s Guide 26) You can Eat Fortune once per hour, rather than once per day.
rLinguistic RevivalSG-04 — You achieved fluency in different languages with each reincarnation, and your brain remembers much of the grammar, idioms, and obscenities that you spouted in old lives.
rPain Is TemporarySG-04 — Sangpotshi practitioners know that suffering is a fleeting sensation that ultimately strengthens the soul and prepares it for a new reincarnation.
rStone Soul SiblingsSG-04 Plant Soul Siblings Your connection with nature’s spirits has progressed to the point where you can even have casual conversation with pebbles and boulders.
Tengu Weapon ExpertiseAPG Tengu Weapon Familiarity Study has made you an expert with tengu weapons.
Thunder God’s FanLOAG Wind God’s Fan A wave of your fan unleashes the fury of the storm.
rUnbreakable ResolveSG-04 — The experience of coming back after death has granted you a strong sense of resolve; devilish words, slick spells, and conniving trickery can’t easily catch you off guard.
Level 17 Tengu Feats Prerequisites Benefits
rBoneyard AcquaintanceSG-04 — Before your soul returned to the Material Plane, you interacted with a host of other souls on their way to the Boneyard.
Favor of HeavenLOAG — You’re one of Hei Feng’s chosen people and have the authority of the Celestial Court on your side.
rFey TranscendenceLOIL Fey Influence You become a powerful fey creature, gaining strengths tied to the First World but also some of the weakness against which all fey must contend.
Great Tengu FormAPG Long-Nosed Form You take on the imposing form of a large, winged oni.
Hurricane SwingLOAG Storm’s Lash (Advanced Player’s Guide 26) Choose either lightning bolt or gust of wind.
rIndomitable SpiritSG-04 — Your soul has accumulated countless particles of quintessence over myriad deaths and rebirths, and for one moment, this raw material from the Great Beyond envelops you and your comrades.
rRelease the LightSG-04 — Many people report seeing a bright light before their death.
rSee You in HellSG-04 — You aren’t sure if you’ll be reincarnated again, so you might as well take this foe with you.
Soaring FormLOAG Soaring Flight (Advanced Player’s Guide 27) Your wings grow stronger.
rThis Time, Bring the BodySG-04 — Death sends a soul into the River of Souls.
Trickster TenguLOAG — You can transform yourself or the bodies of others to express your displeasure.