Why are kobolds?

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Well they’re tied to chromatic because of the lore, they’re evil and meant to be murdered.

But since your design goal is to remove the last two bits, I can imagine a kobold, desperate to keep the tribe prosperous, coming upon a metallic’s lair and stealing one of its eggs. The results being a metallic kobold, who rises to a position of power and over the course of a few generations transforms the tribe. Now you have kobolds of all types and all alignments. They might be the first kobolds welcomed into “civilized society”.

Wow, so only "Good" creatures get allowed into society? I see how it is.
This is why I always play Evil kobolds. This shit right here, man.

[Harshax]

The way I was parsing it was that if kobolds were first associated with the chromatic dragons, they would get a bad rap because chromatic dragons are a scourge.

Then when metallic kobolds started appearing, they’d be found among the dragons that are generally considered good.

But, if metallic and chromatic kobolds have always existed, then they aren’t automatic dungeon fodder.

To Prak’s other point about Bahumet and Tiamat. Being father or mother of dragons is just the gender they prefer to associate with. They both did sex-changing magic to make their children.

I’m not sure is Bahumet is an alternate spelling of Baphomet, but Baphomet is a hermaphrodite.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Bahamut is an arabic sea monster god that has nothing to do with Baphomet.
Since we're on the subject now, I've got to ask: If there are too many kobolds of one sex in a 'bold den, will some of them change sexes like frogs? Is the gotdamn water turning the kobolds gay?

[Prak]

There is some, possible, connection between Bahamut and Baphomet, but nothing concrete, and it's really more Christians being dumb conspiracy theorists, so.

On the subject of kobold sex-

The Picks and The Veins: How to Make a Kobold
Kobolds are naturally a neuter race. They have cloacas which handle elimination, but these cloacas contain no reproductive organs from birth. The cloaca is sensitive, and kobolds can engage in sexual behavior, but it's more like anal for them. They also, generally, enjoy oral sex, for that matter.

In order to reproduce, kobolds must use alchemical concoctions which require a magic gem known to them as eggs of Tiamat as a primary ingredient. Depending on the precise composition of this elixir, a kobold anointed with it might develop a vagina and uterus, one or more penises, or both. Generally, so long as there are a sufficient number of uteruses and penises, which organs a kobold develops is largely up to the individual, but some warrens are more authoritarian.
Sexual politics vary by warren. Typically, any kobold who wishes to be involved in producing the next generation is anointed with the elixir of their choice, and an orgiastic festival ensues. Kobolds prefer to spread the burden of gravidness rather than give it solely to their most prized warriors, because it really sucks to get attacked when all your best defenders are taken out of commission gestating a clutch of eggs. There are, however, warrens which use the honor of reproduction as a reward for their best warriors and a privilege for their nobility. These latter warrens also frequently are much more strict in requiring members to mine as much as possible, always searching for more eggs of Tiamat.

A kobold may retain their genitalia after a mating festival, or may allow their genitalia to "heal" away. They may retain a given configuration of genitalia their whole life, or change at each opportunity as the mood suits them.

While kobold gender is entirely unrelated to sex, those kobolds who frequently deal with cultures that have sex-based genders may adopt such at least in their dealings with those cultures and their adopted "Common Gender" may or may not have any correlation to their genitalia (my sex-loving kobold warlock who uses she/her pronouns in Common has retained her "factory configuration," so to speak).

Because reproduction is more outside their control than it is for most other races, kobolds test the subject with a certain reverence, at least among themselves. A lot of them are of the opinion that the last thing the prime needs is another scaleless, do they don't particularly care about pregnant humans et al, but they do have a certain high regard for gravid kobolds who are making a very real, if temporary, sacrifice to perpetuate the kobold species. Eggs are even more important to them, as they are, essentially, the last chance for something to go catastrophically bad in the creation of a new kobold. While kobolds have no concept of motherhood, let alone the "sanctity" of the role, as they raise their broods communally, they do use an insult that roughly translates to "eggtlv tosser" in a very similar way to how other cultures use "motherfucker."

[Emerald]

If the genders here are more related to the dragon colors, you have a situation where there's an obvious hierarchy of red > blue > green > black > white in terms of the power levels of the actual chromatic dragons

Bit off-topic, but while white dragons are obviously worse (no love for poor white dragons), black are second worse? I thought they were up there with red, with green and blue being a close second and white way behind. Though, may be out of date, if not totally wrong on this.

You're not alone in that impression, people do tend to lump red and black dragons together power-wise (probably because they're more common antagonists in adventures than green or blue ones, I'd bet), but if you look at their challenge ratings, hit dice, stat lines, caster level, etc. the rankings are pretty clear.

Wouldn't acidic saliva mean they hate mint, for the toothpaste and orange juice effect, since citrus fruits are acidic?

The toothpaste/orange juice interaction has nothing to do with mint, actually! It's all about the surfactants in the toothpaste, usually some variety of sodium sulfate, that enhances bitter flavors and downplays sweet ones regardless of the flavor of toothpaste in question.

Strongly-acidic saliva would have the same effect on fruits by reducing or replacing the sweetness (e.g. sulfuric acid reacts with sugar to produce carbon byproducts, so acid kobolds might find that apples taste like charcoal) and vegetables by enhancing the bitterness and tartness (e.g. vinegar washes lead to rapid fermentation, so every vegetable an acid kobold eats might end up tasting like kimchi).

</chemistry trivia>

In the same vein as goblin->hobgoblin->bugbear, I have them pokevolve from kobold->lizardman->troll. (Trolls look like random plant monsters in 3e, but lizards can regenerate, so my trolls got reskinned as lizards and now all's right with the world.) They also come in both chromatic and metallic.

Huh, I've actually done something similar to that before, and for basically the same reason, but it was kobold -> dragonwrought kobold -> draconian -> troll -> half-dragon troll (not literally half-dragon, flavor-wise, but just more magical in the same way dragonwrought kobolds are to kobolds and ogre mages are to ogres), with the energy type that overcomes their regeneration being based on their own associated energy type (fire vs. cold and acid vs. electricity).

Dragon religion is weird. As I understand it, Tiamat is the mother of dragons, but usually only tied to chromatic dragons, and Bahamut the daddy of dragons, and tied specifically to metallic. Certainly they.. could have some divine explanation for Tiamat to be only the mother of chromatic dragons, and Bahamut the father of only the metallic dragons, but... generally back when this lore was written, if there's a "mother of x" and a "father of x," they boned, and everything else is religion.

To Prak’s other point about Bahumet and Tiamat. Being father or mother of dragons is just the gender they prefer to associate with. They both did sex-changing magic to make their children.

More specifically, "father of dragons" and "mother of dragons" are titles, not literal descriptions; they're more accurately the King of Metallic Dragons and Queen of Chromatic Dragons, as they've been described going all the way back to 1e. While they do produce many offspring of their respective families of dragons, they were not the ones who created those families originally--nor do they rule all dragonkind; there are other draconic gods for other families of dragons, most notably Sardior for the gem dragons--as credit for that belongs to the single genderless dragon deity Io (also known as Asgorath, the World Serpent, and a few other names) who originally created dragons and their gods.

[Grek]

I personally prefer the interpretation that kobolds are just haploid dragons. The result of leaving dragon eggs unfertilized. White dragon who hasn't gotten laid in years? Laid a kobold egg every month during that span, and now has a whole lot of children with ice magic, poor job prospects and conflicted feelings on their mother's love life.

[Thaluikhain]

I personally prefer the interpretation that kobolds are just haploid dragons. The result of leaving dragon eggs unfertilized. White dragon who hasn't gotten laid in years? Laid a kobold egg every month during that span, and now has a whole lot of children with ice magic, poor job prospects and conflicted feelings on their mother's love life.

12 a year isn't many kobolds, though. Unless they have clutches of eggs. But yeah, liking that idea.

[Zaranthan]

They could use both reproduction methods. Lonely dragon eggs hatch into fully grown adults, and once you've got two kobolds, they quickly set about having babies of their own. So our lonely dragon has a dozen able helpers and at least as many more in diapers.

Also keep in mind that dragons plan on a scale of decades and centuries, not seasons and years. Ten years of kobold eggs will populate a village sized warren.

[Harshax]

When Prak first talked about gem magic gender alteration, I was thinking about it in a totally vancian, limited duration kind of way. I mean, we’re talking D&D. So, mea culpa.

In Glorantha, Trolls have this divine level curse that makes them not breed true some of the time. In fact they do rituals that can guarantee bon-sub trolls, but the results are a different kind of more physically competent beast.

Also, in that setting, there are dragonewts who go through various stages of transformation that start at mostly humanoid and end with nearly full draconic. Like, kobold->dragonborn->draconian (dragon lance stlye)->young dragon. Dragonewts in that setting are completely alien and not at all suitable PCs, but the mutability and evolution of dragon kind has been represented there as well.

[Prak]

Yeah, Glorantha is weird, and mostly goes all in on that "non-humans would be completely alien, so no you can't play them" thing. Mongoose's RQ2 books are more lenient about that, but still assume you're going to be playing humans. But then, as long as your playing a Sorcerer and have a decent grasp of how mythology and jungian philosophy works, you can do whatever you fucking want with that setting.

[Harshax]

Yeah, Glorantha is weird, and mostly goes all in on that "non-humans would be completely alien, so no you can't play them" thing.

Glorantha is weird because the degree of immersion that is expected to engage the world requires more than a couple years of theology. Understanding stuff like rivers are the remnants of Water gods attacking Earth gods by flowing upstream to invade the land is interesting, but when player skill is based on theology skill and not game-mechanics skill, it's less mtp and more Psychopompic Tea Party.

That said, most of the non-humans: elves, dwarves and trolls are accessible, just not in a way that players are allowed to play a dwarf that isn't all about viewing the world as a broken machine that needs fixing. Of all the non-human races in Glorantha, Dragonewts are truly the most alien. Nobody knows what they're trying to achieve and the dragons that represent their highest level of evolution manifest as dreams that alter reality in ways that can't be quantified as good for humanity or good for society or good for the environment. Their goals might as well be Cthulhu wants a top hat because I've never seen it explained in a way that PCs should want to help or stop them.

But, for all the weirdness, there is no, everything not christian is gross vibe. Satan is just the end of the word as you know it. That part, Chaos, is very refreshing because it isn't a divine test of morality or war of attrition to get the world to give chaos-breeding-dog-fucking a chance or eating books for person knowledge. It's the undoing, like Never Ending Story style: you will not benefit if the world is undone. Full stop.

[Thaluikhain]

They could use both reproduction methods. Lonely dragon eggs hatch into fully grown adults, and once you've got two kobolds, they quickly set about having babies of their own. So our lonely dragon has a dozen able helpers and at least as many more in diapers.

Well...yes. Could have a mother dragon creating offspring and having them breed amongst themselves to create an army, but, you know, incest. True to certain source materials, though.

OTOH, I'm now imagining a dorky but cute single mother dragon with some kobold children and small hoard of gold. Who is career focused and not looking for a relationship, but meets a large male dragon with a big hoard of gold and she takes off her glasses and she was beautiful all along. Which is true to certain other materials, if you include romance novels.

[Prak]

Yeah, Glorantha is weird, and mostly goes all in on that "non-humans would be completely alien, so no you can't play them" thing.

Glorantha is weird because the degree of immersion that is expected to engage the world requires more than a couple years of theology. Understanding stuff like rivers are the remnants of Water gods attacking Earth gods by flowing upstream to invade the land is interesting, but when player skill is based on theology skill and not game-mechanics skill, it's less mtp and more Psychopompic Tea Party.

Agreed. When a player suggests going to the scullery for lye to counteract the acid eating a PC's hand, and the GM says "it doesn't work that way, in this world, lye is an acid because there are no bases" you've got a bullshit setting.

That said, most of the non-humans: elves, dwarves and trolls are accessible, just not in a way that players are allowed to play a dwarf that isn't all about viewing the world as a broken machine that needs fixing. Of all the non-human races in Glorantha, Dragonewts are truly the most alien. Nobody knows what they're trying to achieve and the dragons that represent their highest level of evolution manifest as dreams that alter reality in ways that can't be quantified as good for humanity or good for society or good for the environment. Their goals might as well be Cthulhu wants a top hat because I've never seen it explained in a way that PCs should want to help or stop them.

Well, what I mean is, before MRQ, non-humans were basically off limits, for essentially the same reason that Gygax said people shouldn't play monsters, or women, because they're "too alien." MRQ gave you stats for non-humans, but they still assumed you were going to mostly be playing humans, because dwarves are clones who think the world is a broken machine and elves are plants. And given that that sort of thing is always predicated on neurotypicality... I mean, one of my favorite characters I played was a bug-person, but I was pretty much only allowed that because the bug people of Glorantha are fairly close to human mindsets because they got colonized by the Empire, and I made use of my GM's "everyone gets to ask for something special, paid for with plot debt" policy to get that allowance.

But, for all the weirdness, there is no, everything not christian is gross vibe. Satan is just the end of the word as you know it. That part, Chaos, is very refreshing because it isn't a divine test of morality or war of attrition to get the world to give chaos-breeding-dog-fucking a chance or eating books for person knowledge. It's the undoing, like Never Ending Story style: you will not benefit if the world is undone. Full stop.

I mean... I'm a Satanist. I didn't find Glorantha's treatment of chaos as far off from the typical "everything not christian is gross" vibe. Especially when the goatmen are chaos-worshipping rape monsters.

[Dean]

The magic gem based reproduction doesn't hit for me. It seems like an enormous weakness for a species to have, like if a ship of kobolds lands on an island then I guess they're all dead within a generation? The hella-spicy food works though. Maybe kobolds can just barely taste it, unusually for reptilians. So humans find their food molten and kobolds find human food aggressively bland.

Someone said kobolds are goblins with bad PR and that's basically true. Expanding on their cultural fanatical worship of Dragons seems like the strongest central point to work from. A kobold warren without a dragon to serve is not fulfilling their cultural ideal, they're like vikings without a battle to die in. Perhaps warrens far off from dragons transport gifts of treasure to them in yearly or seasonal offerings, which in turn means there would be "ripe times" to try to rob a kobold warren right before the offering festival. I could see Kobolds basic life goals be about spreading your warrens through as wide an area as you can to control, allowing you to rob enough people to make good treasure gifts to your local dragon demigod. Then the kobolds who live immediately around a dragon live wealthier but more actively servile existences.

They're cowardly seeming trap layers and hole-hiders. So their worship seems like it would have a lot of fearful/fanatical kind of language to it.

[Prak]

On Magic Gem-based Reproduction and islands--
Well, I suppose it depends on the story you want to tell. I lean towards "the magic gems that kobolds need to reproduce are ubiquitous enough that they are viable as a species (possibly helped by very long lifespans), but not so ubiquitous that it's not a thing every warren needs to keep in mind and plan for." So if a ship of kobolds winds up stranded on an island, well, one, I expect they might have some "in case of emergency" or "when we get we're going to colonize" supply of the alchemical elixir they need for reproduction on board. But, two, maybe they didn't go out with a plan of starting a new warren or the supply was lost, I see the island as potentially having the requisite gems, it just might be harder to get to them, or maybe some other culture already on the island has decided the gem is important to them, and so instead of digging, the kobolds have to go Killmonger-Cultural-Artifact-Liberation on this other culture. But in general, I think the gems are just common enough that winding up stranded on an island isn't automatically a death-sentence.

But also, if a ship of humans gets stranded on an island, they might well all be dead in a generation, too, regardless of the fact that human reproduction just needs two humans with sperm and eggs between them (and sufficient food for both and the growing fetus). So, I don't find that particular hypothetical situation as any more serious for kobolds than others.

Kobold religion--
I suppose it depends on whether you want to stick to old depictions of kobolds or not. I, personally, don't find a lot of value in the old D&D depictions of kobolds, beyond the occasional bit that gives me something fun to play with, like the FR/Dragon magazine origin of species. But also that means that... I gotta figure out what they do have culturally and religion-wise.

I suppose it's also worth recognizing that ...my view of kobolds is more shaped by... what I can only really describe as "queer millennials just having fun with short dragon/lizard people without, necessarily, any inherent link to D&D specifically," than, well, D&D specifically. Which, makes me think maybe I should sever the last vestiges of "kobolds as low-level appropriate slaves to dragons" that remains in my take, and figure out some other origin to them.

[JonSetanta]

I'm going to bring up a Koumei concept inspired by Pokemon, and suggest the gems evolve kobolds into more powerful forms rather than.... More kobolds.

[Prak]

I mean, I certainly like the idea that there are gems that can empower a kobold, rather than just letting it reproduce, but I think that easily fits alongside my earlier concept.

[erik]

I personally prefer the interpretation that kobolds are just haploid dragons. The result of leaving dragon eggs unfertilized. White dragon who hasn't gotten laid in years? Laid a kobold egg every month during that span, and now has a whole lot of children with ice magic, poor job prospects and conflicted feelings on their mother's love life.

I really like this and will be adopting it.

[Prak]

So, in taking another run at kobolds, I decided that it is not magical gems they require, whether truly haploid eggs of Tiamat or simply mythologically considered such, but the shells of dragon eggs. I'm looking at the idea that the first kobolds arose without direct intervention from the shell of an egg laid by one of the dragon gods (maybe Io, but maybe another, not sure yet. I reject the idea that the chief dragon god is specifically male, for my setting at least), similar to how trolls in Discworld self-created from a geode that the god Tak created to give rise to dwarves and humans.

In this model, mythical haploid and dead eggs of the draconic gods can be used by the kobolds, but they can also just steal normal dragon eggs or the shells from eggs which have hatched, and kobolds who are in the service of a dragon might just be given the egg shells after a clutch hatches, which certainly encourages them to serve dragons.

[Thaluikhain]

Do you need an acknowledged and correct mythological source for kobolds? Can you just have some kobold clerics claim that is the case and the rest pay at least lip service until it's plot relevant?

[Prak]

Need, no. But I like to know what the actual fact is, since in fantasy settings, a given race might really have been divinely created. The fact that there is apparently no answer as to where dragons actually came from in Greyhawk sort of went against my expectations and tendencies when I was sorting that all out, and while I did frame things as "well, this is what myths say" when I was writing stuff up for them, I do know, for myself at least, what's true with some of them. Like the three-bodied chaotic evil dragon god I created (because there... isn't one in canon? Meanwhile the dragon pantheon has, like, three true neutral and two chaotic neutral gods) did in fact become triple bodied by stealing the bodies of two siblings before they hatched. Because... they are a god of theft and trickery, and that is a very trickster god sort of thing to do. And in other cases, while I haven't decided which version of a myth is true, I know which one I prefer, like the idea that chromatic dragons existed separate from and prior to the gods, as primal elemental draconic spirits, and the gods bound them to use in hunting the first vasharan, creating metallic dragons by binding the primordial chromatic dragons in metal (as opposed to the version where the gods created metallic dragons, and chromatic dragons are the ones who were corrupted by their battles with the vasharans).

[Kaelik]

Do you need an acknowledged and correct mythological source for kobolds? Can you just have some kobold clerics claim that is the case and the rest pay at least lip service until it's plot relevant?

D&D is particularly unaccepting of "the vague setting" because at some point you have to ask why no Kobold Cleric has ever asked where Kobolds come from using their three spells that tell them definite correct information by magic, and the "mystery" of the vague setting is instantly solved by the PCs doing that which is pretty anti climatic for an attempt at mystery.

[Prak]

Yeah, you can sort of only have vague mysteries when even the gods don't know the answers. And even then, there's probably some planar entity that knows.

Whether they'll tell you the answer, or you believe their answer, is it's own matter, but the PC should be able to influence the former, and get a good inclination on the latter, with their skills, at least potentially.

[Thaluikhain]

Do you need an acknowledged and correct mythological source for kobolds? Can you just have some kobold clerics claim that is the case and the rest pay at least lip service until it's plot relevant?

D&D is particularly unaccepting of "the vague setting" because at some point you have to ask why no Kobold Cleric has ever asked where Kobolds come from using their three spells that tell them definite correct information by magic, and the "mystery" of the vague setting is instantly solved by the PCs doing that which is pretty anti climatic for an attempt at mystery.

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about that, though I might say that an easily obtainable source correct information about everything is something best forgotten anyway.

[Prak]

I think you can have a mix, some things that are mysteries to the mortal races can be learned by communing with the gods, while others the gods will not speak on, or do not know the answer to. In my setting, only the draconic gods know where dragons came from (them), but they might not know where they themselves came from, but the gods will say how the vasharan were created, confirming the broad strokes of the Vashar creation myths, even if they have some philosophical differences of opinion on the finer points.