What color is a Tengu in the Dark?


Pathfinder Society

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The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

A local player wants to play a yellow tengu. (I would not be surprised if he intends to have a snuffalumpagus companion.)

So, can a tengu have yellow plumage? My current attitude is to require the regular use of a cantrip, but I'm open to persuasion. Would you completely disallow non-black tengu? Would you allow them without any mechanical justification?

Shadow Lodge 5/5

look online ... some crows are white

Rod of Wonder -

96—97 Wielder (50% chance) or the target (50% chance) turns permanently blue, green, or purple (no save).

1/5

Thought about playing a black tengu, with white flashes on the wings, called Sorrow...

Why any restrictions on colour? They're (uilitmately) bird-men... there are plenty of different coloured birds (even corvids are pretty disparate)...

Shadow Lodge 5/5

they are crow men ... its in the description

Scarab Sages 4/5

Although, it also says in their physical description that some tengu bleach feathers or paint/dye their beaks to make themselves more easily identifiable to other humanoids. He could just say his tengu wanted to REALLY stand out, so he dyed all his feathers yellow. Nobody forgets a yellow tengu.

Sovereign Court 5/5 RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

"We exiled him from the flock, after the great permanent alchemical dye event."

More seriously, for PFS, I'd say no, unless someone can point me to cannon yellow tengu. (just for the sake of avoiding 'reskinning' arguments.)

Shadow Lodge 5/5

he MIGHT be able to get away with Plying off that he used a cursed Item (as one of the drawbacks is Skin / Hair Changes Colors)

but that might be pushing it in Society

on second thought ... it wouldnt work as the drawback is only there so long as the character retains the Item

1/5

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Matthew Morris wrote:
More seriously, for PFS, I'd say no, unless someone can point me to cannon yellow tengu.

Horrified that this is even a point of discussion. Does there have to be a rule specifically allowing everything?

One of the perils using the French legal system, probably...

1/5

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A local player wants to play a human character with green spikey hair. There's nothing in the rulebook that specifically enunciates human hairstyles - should it be allowed?

5/5 5/55/55/5

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From the advanced race guide

Tengus who wish to be more easily identified by
other humanoids may bleach certain feathers or decorate
their beaks with dyes, paint, or tiny glued ornaments.

So you certainly have precedent for a tengu dyeing themselves in different colors, i see no reason it can't be yellow.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

Funky Badger wrote:
Matthew Morris wrote:
More seriously, for PFS, I'd say no, unless someone can point me to cannon yellow tengu.

Horrified that this is even a point of discussion. Does there have to be a rule specifically allowing everything?

One of the perils using the French legal system, probably...

No ... but there is a rule that SPECIFICALLY Disallows Re-skinning (See Reskinning Rule in PFS FAQ or the Numerian Re-skinning thrread)

The Exchange 5/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Marker dye from the Aventurer Armory.

Pay for the dye, get the next judge to mark the condition on his chronicle and Bingo! he's happy. What's hard about this?

Just have him dye his character. "His parents are sure it's a phase he'll grow out of, we just need to ignore it and it'll go away in time." Kind of like when my niece dyed her hair pink. Unnatural pink. (heck, it looked kind of nice after the first shock).

Is there a judge on here who is going to say he CAN'T dye his character? or that would say "it goes away at the end of the mod"? Esp. if he has it as a Condition Gained?

(And it'll be like the character that wants a Tatoo on his arm that reads WOW, so he'll always remember his mom.)

Sovereign Court 5/5 RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

nosig wrote:

Marker dye from the Aventurer Armory.

Pay for the dye, get the next judge to mark the condition on his chronicle and Bingo! he's happy. What's hard about this?

Just have him dye his character. "His parents are sure it's a phase he'll grow out of, we just need to ignore it and it'll go away in time." Kind of like when my niece dyed her hair pink. Unnatural pink. (heck, it looked kind of nice after the first shock).

Is there a judge on here who is going to say he CAN'T dye his character? or that would say "it goes away at the end of the mod"? Esp. if he has it as a Condition Gained?

(And it'll be like the character that wants a Tatoo on his arm that reads WOW, so he'll always remember his mom.)

See, that's fine. Thus my quip about the alchemical dye accident. :-)

But to say he naturally looks like Tweety Bird? Not that I can tell. Or I'll make a red skinned human Aldori duelist with max ranks in acrobatics and call him Cathoris. :-)

1/5

Wraith235 wrote:


No ... but there is a rule that SPECIFICALLY Disallows Re-skinning (See Reskinning Rule in PFS FAQ or the Numerian Re-skinning thrread)

For Pete's sake...

My human wizard decides to cover his body with bright blue dye. Legal?

If "yes", why is this any different from what the OP suggests? He's not saying that the tengu looks like anything other than a tengu with yellow feathers.

If "no", why the heck not?

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/5 **

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Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Is he going to play a mammoth rider?...

The Exchange 5/5

Profession "PBS Muppet"?

If you dye a Tengu blue, and name him Elliot Ness. then when things are going well for him, you could say something like "I see the blue bird is happy MR. Ness."
runs for cover

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Choosing to be a yellow Tengu… no.

Choosing to be a Tengu that dies his feathers yellow… yes.

The distinction here, is that he’s not reskinning anything.

Tengu are crow people, and as such have black feathers. But they are described as dying their feathers and beaks and such.

So there should be no reason to disallow someone from saying they dye their feathers yellow, if they wanted to, and to do so at no cost.

The Exchange 5/5

Hat of Disguise? Could that make him look like a yellow Tengu?

5/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Wraith235 wrote:
No ... but there is a rule that SPECIFICALLY Disallows Re-skinning (See Reskinning Rule in PFS FAQ or the Numerian Re-skinning thrread)

Yeah, that's not true. The rule you're referencing allows reskinning of a superficial nature, as long as you're not changing the item type.

I can't imagine anything more superficial than this. If you need an in-character reason, he was born during a planetary alignment. He was blessed by a God of some kind. One day when he was young he found a Wand of Wonder in a cave and turned himself yellow before an adult could take it away. He used to work in a flower garden and the pollen dyed him yellow. He was cursed by a witch for doing something stupid. He's an albino with jaundice! There are a billion ways this could be done.

RELAX, people.

The Exchange 5/5

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wait, what if there's an ADVANTAGE to being yellow?
(relax, that was sarcasm)

Sovereign Court 1/5

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nosig wrote:

wait, what if there's an ADVANTAGE to being yellow?

(relax, that was sarcasm)

It is easier than being Green.

Dark Archive RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

For precedent,

Spoiler:
I believe the tengu bandit lord in Quest for Perfection Part 3: Defenders of Nesting Swallows died his own feathers red... to hide the blood!

Additional spoiler:

Spoiler:
his Axe Beak was also red if I recall

Grand Lodge 4/5

8 people marked this as a favorite.
Dragnmoon wrote:
Is he going to play a mammoth rider?...

I LOLed after envisioning big bird riding snufulufagus.

It also fits in with my view of a tengu Synthesist with an eidolon in the form of Captain Sanders or an egg.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Yellow tengu: I'm a natural blonde, really!

1/5

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Ah say, ah say boy I say why you wanna be yellow?

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/55/5 **

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Michael Brock wrote:
Dragnmoon wrote:
Is he going to play a mammoth rider?...

I LOLed after envisioning big bird riding snufulufagus.

It also fits in with my view of a tengu Synthesist with an eidolon in the form of Captain Sanders or an egg.

Really... Only one person grew up with Sesame Street? ;)

5/5

Dragnmoon wrote:
Michael Brock wrote:
Dragnmoon wrote:
Is he going to play a mammoth rider?...

I LOLed after envisioning big bird riding snufulufagus.

It also fits in with my view of a tengu Synthesist with an eidolon in the form of Captain Sanders or an egg.

Really... Only one person grew up with Sesame Street? ;)

Only one person commented ;)

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/55/5

Sniggevert wrote:
Dragnmoon wrote:
Michael Brock wrote:
Dragnmoon wrote:
Is he going to play a mammoth rider?...

I LOLed after envisioning big bird riding snufulufagus.

It also fits in with my view of a tengu Synthesist with an eidolon in the form of Captain Sanders or an egg.

Really... Only one person grew up with Sesame Street? ;)
Only one person commented ;)

I think that the rest of us just didn't want to try to spell snuffleufa-- snufluffa-- snuffaluluffa--

Snuffie.

3/5

For those of you who think that yellow is a badwrong color for Tengu to be, what colors would be allowed by RAW in your opinion?

I'm just curious because this whole thread is a sign that the reskin policing that goes on around here has gone completley overboard. Reminds me of the DM who objected to the fact that I had "reskinned" my dinosaur familiar to have feathers.

Dark Archive 3/5

Chris Mortika wrote:

A local player wants to play a yellow tengu. (I would not be surprised if he intends to have a snuffalumpagus companion.)

So, can a tengu have yellow plumage? My current attitude is to require the regular use of a cantrip, but I'm open to persuasion. Would you completely disallow non-black tengu? Would you allow them without any mechanical justification?

We have our...local...tengu barbarian/cavalier grappling/brawling master just now hit the requirements for mammoth lord...

His character name is "Dan Yao".


Saint Caleth wrote:

For those of you who think that yellow is a badwrong color for Tengu to be, what colors would be allowed by RAW in your opinion?

I'm just curious because this whole thread is a sign that the reskin policing that goes on around here has gone completley overboard. Reminds me of the DM who objected to the fact that I had "reskinned" my dinosaur familiar to have feathers.

Wow, really? I'm not sure how I would respond to that. Probably just by packing up and leaving the table.

Silver Crusade

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Saint Caleth wrote:
I'm just curious because this whole thread is a sign that the reskin policing that goes on around here has gone completley overboard. Reminds me of the DM who objected to the fact that I had "reskinned" my dinosaur familiar to have feathers.

Oh wow. Did he also object to you describing your dinosaur moving fluidly rather than in stop-motion?

3/5

Hoplophobia wrote:
Saint Caleth wrote:

For those of you who think that yellow is a badwrong color for Tengu to be, what colors would be allowed by RAW in your opinion?

I'm just curious because this whole thread is a sign that the reskin policing that goes on around here has gone completley overboard. Reminds me of the DM who objected to the fact that I had "reskinned" my dinosaur familiar to have feathers.

Wow, really? I'm not sure how I would respond to that. Probably just by packing up and leaving the table.

Yea, I walked from that table. Since the stupid was that overwhelming before the game even started I really didn't want to stick around to see what would happen when actual rules became involved.

Silver Crusade 4/5

So now we have a yellow Tengu; I imagine someone somewhere has a female blue Gnome with yellow hair and a white hat; and another has a summoner with a purple dinosaur eidolon. Now some GMs have elemental race boons we will probably see a muscular orange-brown rocky skinned Oread and others.

I already know a certain venture captain who has a sweetness and light female character who bakes cakes (with a deer animal companion), and an overweight female character that sings at the end of every scenario.

We are going to need a kitsch faction ;-)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ***

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While there are a few out there that fear reskinning in all its forms, I think we need to apply just a touch of common sense to these kinds of cases. IMO, reskinning is, at its core, changing the appearance of something such that it appears as something it is not. A dog that looks like a pig, or a longsword that looks like a katana, etc. That can be especially problematic if the "something else" is a thing that already has mechanics defined for it within the game. I would hope that we all see changing the color of tengu feathers is no different than a PC being described as light or dark skinned, hair/eye color, height, weight, frame, etc. For game purposes, a yellow-feathered tengu is still a tengu. Since it is now a core race for the purposes of PFS, I would guess that the DC to identify it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of a five. Even a commoner is likely to recognize it as easily as they could tell the difference between an ulfen and a mwangi. I cannot foresee a single in-game issue that would arise from having a tengu with yellow feathers. Can someone point me to the issue if a player wants to run big bird?

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

Are there Norwegian Blue Tengu?

Lovely plumage...

*voom*

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Saint Caleth wrote:

For those of you who think that yellow is a badwrong color for Tengu to be, what colors would be allowed by RAW in your opinion?

I'm just curious because this whole thread is a sign that the reskin policing that goes on around here has gone completley overboard. Reminds me of the DM who objected to the fact that I had "reskinned" my dinosaur familiar to have feathers.

Black.

But you can dye your feathers any color you want.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

Bob Jonquet wrote:
While there are a few out there that fear reskinning in all its forms, I think we need to apply just a touch of common sense to these kinds of cases. IMO, reskinning is, at its core, changing the appearance of something such that it appears as something it is not. A dog that looks like a pig, or a longsword that looks like a katana, etc. That can be especially problematic if the "something else" is a thing that already has mechanics defined for it within the game. I would hope that we all see changing the color of tengu feathers is no different than a PC being described as light or dark skinned, hair/eye color, height, weight, frame, etc. For game purposes, a yellow-feathered tengu is still a tengu. Since it is now a core race for the purposes of PFS, I would guess that the DC to identify it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of a five. Even a commoner is likely to recognize it as easily as they could tell the difference between an ulfen and a mwangi. I cannot foresee a single in-game issue that would arise from having a tengu with yellow feathers. Can someone point me to the issue if a player wants to run big bird?

Not a single issue with it. But following Canon, the feathers would have to be dyed and not natural.

3/5

Andrew Christian wrote:
Not a single issue with it. But following Canon, the feathers would have to be dyed and not natural.

Isn't this overadhearance to cannon as some sort of religious writ exactly what a bunch of people earlier in the thread came to the consensus was bad . To what lengths would someone have to go to to justify their fluff decisions with "cannon" and meaningless distinctions to satisfy you?

I also think that this is one of the few times when the no-reskin side gives rise to the awkward questions which interact with mechanics. How much dye does it take to dye a tengu yellow? Does the yellow marker dye actually bleach the feathers as well, because otherwise it could not turn black feathers yellow? How often would the tengu in question have to re-dye his feathers? On the other hand you could just let him be yellow and stop coming up with more and more convoluted reasons why players can't do things, thus avoiding all these awkward questions.

3/5

Andrew Christian wrote:
Saint Caleth wrote:

For those of you who think that yellow is a badwrong color for Tengu to be, what colors would be allowed by RAW in your opinion?

I'm just curious because this whole thread is a sign that the reskin policing that goes on around here has gone completley overboard. Reminds me of the DM who objected to the fact that I had "reskinned" my dinosaur familiar to have feathers.

Black.

But you can dye your feathers any color you want.

Where exactly in the rules text does it deliniate acceptable skin/hair/feather colors for PC's? I see it only in fluff text.

Do you also give people a hard time if they do not follow the height/weight and age charts given for each race, or do you singe this sort of thing out to give people a hard time about?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/5 ***

I welcome a yellow-feathered tengu to my table until such time as the player tries to gain a mechanical advantage from it. IMO, it is not a re-skin issue. I presume all players just want to have fun and are not out to break the game for the GM or the other players, until they do. As I have no reason to think that will happen with the player above, game on! Just be aware that if said badwrongfun does occur, your yellow feathers will revert to black.

Shadow Lodge 5/5

there are White Crows out there ... REALLY Rare but they exist (Google Them)

2nd - I dont think its a "Fear" per Se ... but more of a universal understanding that if you give people an inch ... they will take a mile

Ive seen it happen time and time again ... and no its not an exaggeration

the ultimate question is where does it end .. because once it starts it will inevitably get worse/stranger/more complex/<insert descriptive text here> I think that is more the issue than anything else

you have the ppl that want their campaign to stay pure ... you have people that want to do weird things both say the other is wrong ... and both get vehemently defensive when you encroach upon their beliefs/desires

I personally dont have an Issue if you put the effort into explaining why your appearance is vastly different from the norm ... hell in a home game do whatever you want... but please realize that the rules are in place for a reason ... and try to think about that reason beyond your own desires


in James earl Jonas voice: It's all good in the dark, baby.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Andrew Christian wrote:
Saint Caleth wrote:

For those of you who think that yellow is a badwrong color for Tengu to be, what colors would be allowed by RAW in your opinion?

I'm just curious because this whole thread is a sign that the reskin policing that goes on around here has gone completley overboard. Reminds me of the DM who objected to the fact that I had "reskinned" my dinosaur familiar to have feathers.

Black.

What is this, a ford model T?

From the ARG

Though tengus are unable to fly, iridescent
feathers cover their bodies—this plumage is usually
black, though occasionally brown or blue-back

The Exchange 5/5

Can I take 10 on dyeing the tengu yellow?

Hay! can I dye the druids AC green while he's not looking? say when I'm on watch and he's asleep? oh, and on the RAW for marker dye....

Marker Dye:

Marker Dye: This dye (available in
several colors) creates an obvious stain
wherever splashed. Washing has no effect for
the first 72 hours (though magic can erase it), but it
fades completely after 2 weeks. You
can throw it as a splash weapon.

I guess I can't take 10 then, it looks like dying the Tengu is an attack roll.

2/5

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Wait, wait. Wait.

So we can use marker due to make Tengus different colors, right?

What if we mix in a little bit of Glowing Ink?

We end up with a rave tengu. Now get a party of 6 tengus of different colors, one of which is a bard, and have a rave party!

Silver Crusade 1/5

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There are many wys to make your tengu's plumage different collors dye, all diffrent kinds of dyes exist in pathfinder. try exteded alter self exteded presdigtation.

So if you want your Tengu to look like big bird I say go for it, flex your plumage and strut your stuff

Some rules lawyers on the boards forget the point of the game is to have fun. if there is no mechanical advantage for the Tengu PC to have abnormal plumage let it be I have seen seveaal abnormal pc's o other races and it does nothingto detract from the game. So I say give the Tengu a break let the look like Parrots if they want to.

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