Why rename Kenku to Tengu?


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Lair Larrikin

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Post Sunday, 6th November 2011, 21:14

Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

I just saw this was changed in Trunk, and since I've grown to like Kenkus, I am quite pissed about this, as it strikes me as completely unnessecary. The argument is apparently that Kenkus are taken from D&D and therefor it is bad that they are called like that in Crawl. Further, this should pave the way to integrate Kenkus more with Crawl by giving them more flavour and background, and then build upon that (maybe). Which is fine. But there is no reason to rename Kenkus.
As anyone who knows D&D Kenkus and reads the Wiki article on Tengus (antropomorphic bird spirits from Japan) can see, the former was probably derived from the latter! Granted, kenkus in D&D do not have much of flavour, but what is there is obviously at the core of the Tengu mythology: Violent birds with human traits. Heck, even the name is only a slight variation of the source. In Crawl, the only big change that has been made to Tengus is that they do not have wings anymore (which is good, since this always interfered with the armour wearing capability of Kenkus). However, the evolution of Tengu in the original mythology suggests they are actually more human now than bird - they don't even have beaks normally; also they are not violent.

This brings me to the main point about this change: It could have been done without changing the name. The devs could have done anything with Kenkus in Crawl - the fact that they were originally from D&D is totally irrelevant, especially today, where probably a lot of Crawl players never played D&D or simply do not give a crap about what it was in D&D. I love how it is often stressed that Crawl wants to get rid of fantasy cliche, especially flavour-wise, but the changes that are made to that are almost always based on something that already exists anyway. True creativity is something different. And I can't see how changing Kenku to Tengu magically gives the species and the game more flavour, as if a japanese flavoured species was a prerequisite to including asian mythology. Let me repeat, you can change that stuff without changing names. And yes, I am mad because you changed a name. Even though it is arbitrary, I grew quite fond of "Kenku". Also, I saw that there are new leaderboards for Tengus even though they are the exact same species. Which is depressing, since I 15 runed 3 Kenkus Combos previously un 15-runed, and I planned to do more. So I can play 0.9 now as long as it is available, or switch to Tengu. Fucking Tengu.

/rant

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Post Sunday, 6th November 2011, 21:28

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Narretz wrote:The devs could have done anything with Kenkus in Crawl


They did. They renamed them Tengu.

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Mines Malingerer

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Post Sunday, 6th November 2011, 21:30

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

[/lurk] not being overly familiar with obscure D&D stuff, i had no idea what kenku were when i first played crawl, and upon playing one just figured that the name was, in fact, some weird corruption of the tengu myth and wondered why they weren't just called tengu. so the change actually makes the race feel more natural to me. i for one have no problem with it, and can't really understand why it would make such a huge difference. [lurk]

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Post Sunday, 6th November 2011, 21:56

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

I get where the OP is coming from, but just… meh. Now we just have a ripoff of Japanese culture, instead of a ripoff of a ripoff of Japanese culture. Don't really care either way in this case, to be totally honest. I'm from Japan, which probably biases things a bit.

Tengus having a separate leaderboard is a legitimate problem, though, if the race hasn't received any gameplay changes. Hopefully the name revision is a precursor of more changes to come?

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Post Sunday, 6th November 2011, 22:54

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

The commit message certainly says it is.

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Post Sunday, 6th November 2011, 23:08

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

We already covered this topic in Crazy Yiuf's Corner, people. Which is exactly where it belongs. The devs don't need to come, hat in hand, to beg the playerbase's permission for ridiculously trivial changes. There's enough similarly trivial issues that get changed that attempting to do a forum discussion on each and every one would quickly swamp out all of the threads that actually do matter.
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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 02:05

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Heh, I had no idea kenku came from D&D - I thought they were an original creation for Crawl! (Never made the tengu connection, either...)

Now if you really want to mess with people, call 'em Chozo :P
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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 03:42

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

ElectricAlbatross wrote:Now we just have a ripoff of Japanese culture

We already have octopodes and tentacled monstrosities, is one more such a big deal? :o

goo

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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 05:15

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Eh, I don't have a problem with it. The race, from what I understand, is going to play pretty much the same. Plus, Tengu (Tengus?) are badass looking.

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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 07:17

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Narretz wrote:In Crawl, the only big change that has been made to Tengus is that they do not have wings anymore (which is good, since this always interfered with the armour wearing capability of Kenkus).


That was actually just a bug fix considering monsters and player ghosts (they're supposed to be wingless, for example the manual was saying so). I don't think there's even any gameplay effect. As far as I can tell the only thing that it made happen was using wrong tile for monster tengu zombies.

I'm pretty sure the leaderboards etc could be fixed to combine Kenku and Tengu. Was this done with Crusaders/Skalds by the way?

I was one of the people advocating the change, so I'll tell you why I thought it'd be good. "Kenku" wouldn't have been a problem otherwise, but it's solely a D&D invention (and not part of their open gaming licence stuff either). Kind of like if the halflings were called hobbits. That's not a problem for everyone, but it did irk me.

It's true that the species is based on, well nearly directly copied from D&D kenkus (except that kenku can't fly). I personally think that the "violence" theme and glass cannon thing are important to keep. I'm interested to see what new stuff due will come up with. Of course, tengu in Crawl will be Crawl tengus, the source material twisted to the game's needs.

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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 07:52

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

evktalo wrote:I'm pretty sure the leaderboards etc could be fixed to combine Kenku and Tengu. Was this done with Crusaders/Skalds by the way?


it wasn't. the changes were more significant though (the book was redone), so it wasn't too bad. it'd be a good idea here, though.
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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 09:18

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Why not rename them Morrigi for Crawl 1.1?

I do oppose to the change of the name, because there it is no obvious reason to change the UI.
This name appear since long ago on one of the most seen screen of the game (race choice).
If you change it, you should have a strong reason, and just because it comes from another game is not good enough for me.
If you do so, why not rename Strength Dexterity and Intelligence?
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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 11:13

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

I'm definitely glad to hear this renaming proposal since Kenku is too-much D&D plagiarism to me. First of all, I don't know why this race was renamed in that game. Also they deserve some extra-backgrounds as monsters.

Crawl tries to be as faithful as possible to standard myths and legends, and should shun any modern game concept in case that a previous similar idea exists .
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Post Monday, 7th November 2011, 12:43

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Roderic wrote:Crawl tries to be as faithful as possible to standard myths and legends, and should shun any modern game concept in case that a previous similar idea exists .


Well, Stone Soup tries at least. Linley was pretty happy to take a lot of stuff from D&D direct.

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Post Wednesday, 9th November 2011, 17:47

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

evktalo wrote:
Roderic wrote:Crawl tries to be as faithful as possible to standard myths and legends, and should shun any modern game concept in case that a previous similar idea exists .


Well, Stone Soup tries at least. Linley was pretty happy to take a lot of stuff from D&D direct.

--Eino


In this case, "tries" means "gives lip service to when it suits what the powers that be want to do anyway". So we end up with minotaurs that are masters of arms and armor and good in mazes, instead of bestial unarmed fighters that can be imprisoned in mazes.
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Post Thursday, 10th November 2011, 05:11

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

theropod wrote:In this case, "tries" means "gives lip service to when it suits what the powers that be want to do anyway". So we end up with minotaurs that are masters of arms and armor and good in mazes, instead of bestial unarmed fighters that can be imprisoned in mazes.


I think you're exactly right; gameplay considerations generally trump strict adherence to any particular mythology. Crawl is set in its own world.
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Post Thursday, 10th November 2011, 19:17

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

How about a compromise of Kengu? That way nobody is happy.

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Post Thursday, 10th November 2011, 20:20

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Tenku.

(You're welcome.)
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Post Friday, 11th November 2011, 01:38

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Stormfox wrote:Tenku.

(You're welcome.)


"Tenku" just happens to be one of the Japanese words for the sky, by the way.

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Post Friday, 11th November 2011, 14:29

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

So, any news about merging the leaderboards? Was this even considered?
On the other hand, now some people can have fun being the first to win Tengu Combos, and I can presumably rest my head having the highest numver of high-scoring Kenku combos ...
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Post Friday, 11th November 2011, 16:15

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

minmay wrote:http://i.imgur.com/H9PJ0.jpg


While trying to find a reply on google image, I found a site full of Tengu Hentai and another where the user Tengu post is pedopornographic sketch. :/

*Weird Adult Only*

censored

And even a weird mix of tentacle/tengu porn

censored

But with Kenkuj, the worse was women in wonderbra and this baby :

censored

So yeah, If you want to attract some japaness perverts instead of old geeks, this is a good change. :lol:
Last edited by mageykun on Friday, 11th November 2011, 16:50, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Friday, 11th November 2011, 16:17

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

... I'm moving this to Yuif's corner, where it really belongs.
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Post Friday, 11th November 2011, 18:54

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

If you find any mistakes or typos in my post, feel free to PM me about it. Thanks in advance!

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Post Friday, 11th November 2011, 20:35

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Narretz wrote:So, any news about merging the leaderboards? Was this even considered?


Has anyone mentioned this to people in charge of them? I sure haven't! :D (I'm not even 100% sure which leaderboards we are talking about)

njvack wrote:
theropod wrote:In this case, "tries" means "gives lip service to when it suits what the powers that be want to do anyway". So we end up with minotaurs that are masters of arms and armor and good in mazes, instead of bestial unarmed fighters that can be imprisoned in mazes.


I think you're exactly right; gameplay considerations generally trump strict adherence to any particular mythology. Crawl is set in its own world.


Well, yeah. Some of the devs like to go to the source of the myth/etc, but of course whatever is there has to fit into Crawl itself. I was more replying to the general "D&D as a source" avoidance, and my point really was that it's a Stone Soupism. And even then it's not something that was on Darshan's and Erik's todo list when they started, but something other devs have brought along with them. I'd like to see other mythologies than the predominant ancient Greek/Roman classics get represented more, hopefully Tengu will bring some fun stuff along with them.

--Eino

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Post Saturday, 12th November 2011, 01:21

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

evktalo wrote:I'd like to see other mythologies than the predominant ancient Greek/Roman classics get represented more, hopefully Tengu will bring some fun stuff along with them.


Mermaids could be reflavoured to rusalki, from Slavic mythology.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rusalka

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Post Saturday, 12th November 2011, 18:26

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Roderic wrote:Kenku is too-much D&D plagiarism to me.


What about orks, wargs, elves, merfolks, halflings, trolls, balrugs, ...

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Post Saturday, 12th November 2011, 22:40

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

ilpalazzo wrote:
Roderic wrote:Kenku is too-much D&D plagiarism to me.

What about wargs, elves, merfolks, trolls

Those are from mythology, in some cases via Tolkien, before D&D.

halflings, balrugs, orks

Those are from Tolkien before D&D.

D&D itself was always swipe-heavy, taking things pretty much at random from any fantasy authors and cultures. However there are a few D&D originals that might actually work in game. For example, Mind Flayers.

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Post Sunday, 13th November 2011, 01:44

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

I don't care about this change. But I do care if the real reason is "anti D&D". Surely there has to be more to it than that. :roll:
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Post Sunday, 13th November 2011, 02:04

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

blueDave wrote:I don't care about this change. But I do care if the real reason is "anti D&D". Surely there has to be more to it than that. :roll:


I think the Crawl devs want to establish their own thing without resorting to well-worn cliches from Tolkein and D&D, and so if they have an opportunity to get rid of that stuff without having to make significant other changes they'll happily blast Gygax out the airlock.

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Post Sunday, 13th November 2011, 02:32

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Tengus are cool, I don't mind.

Tengus are Japanese Yokai(demons/monsters); that're are half-man, half-bird(mostly crow). If you look at the illustrations carefully; you'd see that some do have beaks, while others have huge noses. In some aspects, Tengus are the antithesis to Harpies. Since Tengus are mostly male and Harpies are mostly female.

Although if the devs are going for cultural impact then they better return my beloved katanas, add a samurai & ninja classes and trash skalds. :twisted:

(I hate skalds, I never heard about skalds in my entire life until Crawl made it)

If they're adding stuff, it would be wise to add popular and well-established terms easily recognizable to the players. :mrgreen:
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Post Sunday, 13th November 2011, 04:14

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

The devs can't be bothered to stick to any given mythology. Heck, they can't even be bothered to stick to common sense in their balance decisions.

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Post Sunday, 13th November 2011, 07:49

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Grimm wrote:Those are from mythology, in some cases via Tolkien, before D&D.

They are, but their features are the Tolkien/D&D shaped (at least the elven, warg and troll ones were different before).

Grimm wrote:Those are from Tolkien before D&D.

Sure, and I like Tolkien and I don't mind at all putting his stuff or D&D stuff into other games. But Tolkien isn't exactly mythology.

Yay for ninjas and katanas! I don't like the skalds either.

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Post Sunday, 13th November 2011, 19:54

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

ilpalazzo wrote:Sure, and I like Tolkien and I don't mind at all putting his stuff or D&D stuff into other games. But Tolkien isn't exactly mythology.


Well, I would have to disagree. Tolkien is *exactly* mythology. That doesn't mean it has to be programmed into Crawl, of course. But, the tendency to confuse Tolkien with the constant infusion of Tolkienish concepts into popular culture, roguelikes especially, distresses me because It makes his work sound hackneyed and trite, which couldn't be further from the truth.

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Post Sunday, 13th November 2011, 21:51

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Personally, I just read Wikipedia for the articles, but thanks for the warning. :)
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Post Monday, 14th November 2011, 11:09

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

D&D itself was always swipe-heavy, taking things pretty much at random from any fantasy authors and cultures. However there are a few D&D originals that might actually work in game. For example, Mind Flayers.


And quasits, surely to fill the q entries in the list of monsters.
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Post Monday, 14th November 2011, 12:54

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

D&D is packed to the brim with barrel scrapings to pad out new monster manuals. Like sea lions. They're actual lions that live underwater. The result of some demented wizard experiment, along with everything else that doesn't make sense.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/dungeons-and-dragons/monster-manual-two.php?page=1
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Post Monday, 14th November 2011, 18:13

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

So, if we're going Japanese with the tengu... why not a tanuki race? :)

*been playing too much Super Mario 3D Land* :P
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Post Monday, 14th November 2011, 18:31

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

spurious wrote:Tolkien is *exactly* mythology.


Is, it? I'm confused...
(In my opinion) real mythology is something people actually *believed* in - it was once considered reality (by whole populations).
Tolkien invented a complex and awesome mythology that also contains many symbolic meanings. But that's rather fantasy.
It's not mythology if I make up some new fantasy world. Or is, it?

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Post Monday, 14th November 2011, 19:45

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

In the context of video games and novels the mythos presented in the book is just as real and tangible to the characters contained therein as actual real world mythology is/was to the civilizations that created it.

In Tolkien's books he presents a strong and fairly coherent mythos. In a number of Final Fantasy games, and also in the Phantasy Star series they also have a mythos which has a great bearing on the game's events. The same can be said of The Elder Scrolls series, or any other number of popular RPGs. These would all be created mythos, usually ones that have borrowed liberally from any number of real world mythologies.

The basis and origin of a mythos is only relevant if you divide along the lines of a 'created' ones, ala fantasy novels and video games, or a mythos that was an integral part of the religious activities of a civilization.

As for you creating a back story for a fantasy world: It would still qualify as Mythology though it would be a created one and most probably constructed in such a fashion as to have symbolic meanings which are pertinent to the messages of the plot in your novel/story/etc. For mythology created for a book you'd have little luck getting it studied in Uni unless it reached the popularity of Tolkien.

I have never used the word "mythos" that many times before in a single post, paragraph, or document. I forgot what my initial point was going to be in this post.

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Post Tuesday, 22nd November 2011, 13:36

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

Eaki Godsbane wrote:(I hate skalds, I never heard about skalds in my entire life until Crawl made it)



DAoC is where I exclusively heard of them. So when I saw the change I thought it's DAoC ripoff.
http://camelot.allakhazam.com/class.html?cclass=25

AtT

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Post Tuesday, 22nd November 2011, 18:24

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

What is DAoC like?

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Post Wednesday, 23rd November 2011, 10:11

Re: Why rename Kenku to Tengu?

AtT wrote:What is DAoC like?


Well, it's a MMORPG that's way past its peek. Never really played it a lot anyway. Just played some weeks on a free shard with some friends. This is still possible btw. You can download the client from the official site, and then follow the directions on the various free shard web sites. You can also play 14 days or so on the official server for free.

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