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>>96855509
Mandatory evolution map.

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>>96859911
And type chart.

Those kobold threads are not popular lately, huh?

>>96859911
Did every fantasy race start as little humans?

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>>96855509
>My current game has one running a thieves' guild
Tell me about the scallywag.

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>>96861095
She styles herself a classy mob boss, ready for anything. We're playing 3.5 and her class is Beguiler.

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>>96855509
Would you smooch a kobold?

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>>96861095
>>96862124
Here she is in combat outfit. The party has cautiously negotiated with her but it's been very tense every time, just how I wanted it.

>>96855509
I've got a little kobold artificer who's just trying to make the world a safer place. We recently did a bank heist to get our stuff back from a bunch of thieves, and inside the main vault, among all the art pieces and relics, was a special Deck of Many Things with cards that don't disappear when you draw them. Naturally, we all decide to start drawing from the deck and my little Kobold gets all of his magic items disenchanted, gets a bunch of valuable gems, goes up three levels, and gets a very rare magic item (all purpose tool, +3). After we all draw from the deck, and one player earns the enmity of a pit fiend, we all decide it's best if we give the Deck to the closest archmage.

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>>96860739
Yes, all other races are downgrades of variant human.

>>96860739
That's why they're called races and not species

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>>96855509
Drew some Kobold OC for this thread. I wanted a nice middle ground between cute and cuddly while still looking like it could be an enemy for the average fantasy adventure.

fuck off furfag

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>>96866449
Ngl, it has murlock energy.

>>96855509
I did a Kobold Urban Ranger once. Styled him as a detective, watched a few episodes of Columbo before every session to get in the zone.
Mostly played him as a non-combatant oriented item user. Acid vials & alchemical fire, thunderstones, caltrops, ect. And then played up the traps to make elaborate capture devices that would make Fred from Scooby Doo proud.
If I remember right, the campaign moved on from that city, and I retired him since it didn't make sense for him to leave. The plan was for him to stick around as a contact, but I don't think he ever came up again, unfortunately.

>>96866474
Huh?

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>>96868649

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>>96859940
>>96859911
>more of a goblin (or sprite)
Nah they're more akin to gnomes in our Folklore. Kobold, Gnome, Wichtel and Heinzelmännchen are all pretty interchangable: usally very small dudes with beards and/hats that can be very helpful or sometimes annoying (kinda fey-ish).
I can't remember a single children's story where "goblins" are ever named or where kobols have any similarities to goblins. They're not green or violent.


t. German

>>96871448
Pretty sure I've read a german folktale about kobold that chop a child into pieces and cook them up. Iirc, it was "the tale of the hodekin". Still, child was killed in retribution for misbehavior so quite normal thing for german fairy tale.

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>>96871300
I love war kobolds

>>96872568
Trench Bolds are great

>>96855509
Kobolds remind me of The Race from the World War series

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say something nice about my girls

>>96885759
They're all cute, but why do some have boobs and some don't?

>>96886045
all of the breasts are illusionary for the sole purpose of tempting human men. same with the hair

>>96886163
Now I get it

>>96886331
Cute art but the fluff is weird

>>96886331
kobolds aren't fluffy

>>96886163
In my setting, kobolds and dragonborn have boobs because they were created in the image of the humanoid races.

>>96895859
Same with lizardfolk, yuan-ti, and the like?
What about bullywugs and such?

>>96896135
Yuan-ti, yes, Lizardfolk, no. Basically, if it has a human ancestor or template, it's gonna have boobs. Bullywugs, aarakocra, ettercaps, and the like don't have them because they're the product of a sudden surge of magic into a leyline. Gnolls do have two mammary glands despite having a similar origin to the aforementioned races, but they're more identical to how hyena mammaries are shaped.

The more time passes, the less happy I am with kobolds as enemies. I think at this point I straight up don't enjoy killing the little buggers anymore. They're lovable in a way goblins simply aren't.

>>96885759
why is she lactating fire
that can't be healthy

>>96901138
she's chuuni and thinks it looks cool

>>96867564
maybe a bit of a flub by the DM there. if i'm DMing a campaign where a location change is going to break a character's usability, i'm not likely to allow that kind of character as-is. i try to avoid "doesn't belong with the party" sorts of characters. a homebody shopkeeper is right out, for instance.

of course maybe it was just you being less flexible with the character's willingness to leave than your DM expected.

just seems like a solvable problem to me is all, if you wanted to keep playing him.

>>96898076
Exactly. Kobolds are plucky little goofballs who, at the end of the day, just wanna make their dragon boss happy. Goblins just wanna ruin everyone's day

>>96866449
He looks very gentle.

>>96885759
Would

>>96855509
Post passports, state IDs, SSNs, and birth certificates of players or you don't have a game.

>>96866474
mindbroken

>>96898076
>>96904253
Goblins often lean more into the fairy/fey roots, and fairies are frequently assholes in stories.

Kobolds have been largely defined by D&D in the English-speaking modern world (what do Germans call kobolds, since that's their word for goblin, I wonder?), and in D&D they're more associated with protecting their own homes than destroying the homes of others. The things that make them not just scaly (or dog-like) goblins are either things tying them to dragons or a lack of the more chaotically destructive nature of goblins (or both).

Their inventiveness is also something not typically shown with goblins, and it has always been pretty endearing. Doesn't matter if it's all macaroni-necklace-tier - they have the capacity and desire to create new things, both functional and artistic, that you don't tend to see in antagonist cannon fodder. You certainly don't see it in goblins, who are usually occupying the ruins of a location they themselves destroyed. For most of D&D history goblins are like mini-orcs, and they never got the sympathetic treatment orcs eventually got. They're still pretty much mini-classic orcs.

I do wonder if part of that is people wanting to play as half-orcs (or the orcs that behave like half-orcs always did, now) and kobolds way more often than anyone wanting to play as a goblin. There are all kinds of viable backstories to use for the former two, but not much to work with for goblins.

>>96904253
>>96906495
Or, to put it more succinctly,
Kobolds:
>"I'll do my best!"
Goblins:
>"I'll do my worst!"

>>96860739
Some started as big humans.

>>96906759
lol

>>96898076
>>96904253
i think it also has to do with dragonkin and other dragon-adjacent humanoids are just fucking boring. they have little to no interesting lore and are effectively humans with scales and fire breath. Whereas kobolds are visually distinct, small, and have the inherent lore of being subservient to dragons. each of which make them interesting to roleplay

>>96906495
Goblins are also depicted as inventors but always of shitbuilds made of wood and bomb and with the cringiest "BIG EXPLOSION BLA BLAMMO HEE HEE" personalities ever. Do kobolds also have some of that? Yes. But it's not the only characteristic they have

>>96908111
It also matters a lot what that inventiveness is for. Kobolds are typically trappers, not besiegers, which makes kobold shitbuilds inherently more sympathetic. They're working with what they have at home, and that's usually not very much in the way of industry. Goblins are usually working with stuff they've stolen, and will bring their shitbuilds to try and burn down or blow up a village. In contrast, if you get hit with a kobold trap... there's a good chance you've chosen to put yourself in a place that you already know might have kobold traps.
It's very, very easy to turn existing kobold characterization into mundane coexistence as a part of D&D "civilization." They aren't inflexibly chaotic. Individual kobolds aren't particularly predisposed towards attacking people (they are acutely aware of how weak they are). They don't necessarily need to kill or steal from people to satisfy their biological needs OR their usual goals. There's not a lot of wind behind the "kobolds as evil hordes" sails EXCEPT when you make whatever they serve evil... in which case it's not really the kobolds' fault directly. It's not like they'd survive rebelling - you might even pity them for being used that way as you're fighting them.
By the last edition of D&D that called kobolds lawful evil, they were already closer to lawful neutral in practice. If the narrative gives them no concrete reason to be hostile to you (like them serving a hostile dragon or you invading their home), there's little besides a couple of mostly ignored lines in ancient splatbooks to imply that they would invent a reason or attack without one like a goblin would.

...Unless you're a gnome (in which case they already have plenty of good reasons, screw gnomes).

As an aside, one thing I wish we saw more of in D&D stuff is kobolds working for metallic/good dragons. I suppose the lack makes sense, since kobolds (and chromatics) are a good bit more common to encounter than metallics.

>>96907993
Yes, this is very true. "Vaguely draconic humanoid" is more like a human wearing a costume most of the time, even in what little info about them we get. Tieflings aren't even as bad in that regard.

Then there's weird, confusing, overlapping nonsense in D&D like the difference between dragonborn and half-dragons - which includes of course the detail that the "dragonborn" are the ones NOT born from dragons.

i wonder if cooked kobold tastes like alligator. cooked human apparently tastes like pork, after all.

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>>96906759
Nailed it, lol.

>>96909851
>There's not a lot of wind behind the "kobolds as evil hordes" sails EXCEPT when you make whatever they serve evil... in which case it's not really the kobolds' fault directly. It's not like they'd survive rebelling - you might even pity them for being used that way as you're fighting them.
Something something Kobold Liberation Front. Something something rebellion plot/side questline.
Also, further proving your point about characterization, a PC kobold fighting the Big Bad Dragon to liberate their brethren isn't exactly hard to imagine.

Semi-related question: could they serve half-dragons/dragonborn/whatever-dragon-related? Even if it's as something like low-cost low-power allies, or something to that effect.
Imagine slaying a dragon as a half-dragon, then get beset by a gaggle of confused kobolds that just lost their boss and don't know what to do and ask if you're in charge of them now.
It's rather amusing to imagine some kind of literal underground criminal enterprise, with 'bolds working for a guy with draconic features.
If it's at least somewhat dragon-looking, kobolds will feel an instinctive urge to serve it. Sad, but also kinda funny.

>>96859940
where the hell are kobolds fish

>>96862841
>a special Deck of Many Things with cards that don't disappear when you draw them
the Deck of Many Things is already powerful enough lmao

>>96871448
Goblins aren't always either green or violent. The traits that generally stick are: Small, big ears, long nose, sneaky.

>Me and the players decide to start a side campaign called "Everyone is Kobolds"
>Character's stats become the hex values that determine what colour the kobold is
>Dungeon crawl
>Used as an excuse to test-drive some of the grittier OSR procedures.
>The kobolds have to retrieve the seven magical dragon orbs scattered throughout the dungeon in order to summon their Dragon Goddess
>Dragon Goddess is named "Rasvim Dast", which is draconic for "Treasure Mommy"
>We're having an absolute blast

>>96909885
>then there's weird, confusing, overlapping nonsense in D&D like the difference between dragonborn and half-dragons - which includes of course the detail that the "dragonborn" are the ones NOT born from dragons.
How the fuck are those two confusing?
Dragonborn are a race of dragon humanoids that have existed as long as humans and dwarves and others have (in-setting, because I have to clarify this for the lackwits and retards). Their name is a poetic and likely mythological naming convention hinting at how their culture sees themselves.

Meanwhile, half-dragons are individuals literally born from the mixing of a dragon and something else, thus being half of a dragon. They lack a culture, nations, and most everything a race has. They are rare and no two are alike.

How you can confuse these two is astounding and says a great deal about your intelligence. You may also be autistic with the retarded notion that the Dragonborn name is a literal description of what they are, something that is entirely stupid to think, considering the names of other races/ancestries/species. Are you retarded enough to think halfings are literally half a human? Or that dwarves are just dwarf humans? If so, I can understand your confusion, but TTRPGs arent for you and Id advise your handler to stop allowing you on 4chan.

>>96907993
>dragonkin and other dragon-adjacent humanoids are just fucking boring. they have little to no interesting lore and are effectively humans with scales and fire breath
4e had a ton of lore for dragonborn, all of which was gotten rid of for the incredible vagueness of 5e. It is a massive crime what 5e and BG3 have done to dragonborn (Wheres my official fucking dragon tits Larian?).

>>96915606
Anon, I was making a joke about the name. For a while it was actually an open question whether half-dragons still existed in official lore.

I didn't even mention dragonkin (which are neither dragonborn nor half-dragons), weredragons, or those silly centaur dragon things called "dracons."

>>96915103
That does sound like a blast. It's not for everyone all the time, but there's something almost universally fun about playing kobolds that you don't get with much else.

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>>96915664
>Anon, I was making a joke about the name.
It was a poor joke that I've seen stated with full actual confidence. There are some very stupid people out here who think exactly like your joke.

Dragonkin are interesting depending on setting and edition. The 3e dragonkin from Monsters of Faerun looks remarkably like a dragonborn but with a tail and wings. See pic, where I've deleted the tail and wings. They are likely the inspiration for the look of 4es dragonborn as 3.5s template version seems to have had little or no influence on the 4e version.

Then, of course, there are Starfinders dragonkin which are literally just "small" dragons so you can play as some form of space dragon with future tech.

>For a while it was actually an open question whether half-dragons still existed in official lore.
Honestly, getting rid of half-dragons wouldn't be that bad. Too many people want the Mary Sue bullshit of being the literal child of a dragon so they can use their dragon parent as a power move. Or they get upset it isn't powerful enough. And the weird monsters that result from dragon mixing are kind of bullshit and often dont make sense.

Better to just make a humanoid dragon race and be done with it.

>>96915606
>>96915972
there's a weird focus in most of the 4e dragonborn lore on explicitly separating them from direct connection with Faerun dragons. and a lot of it is leaning on a history and setting (Abeir) that we never really explore besides a few details and "oh yeah all the dragonborn came from Abeir." IIRC there is also some implied cultural atheism that limits the scope of their religious lore (and is also an extreme hazard for their souls on Faerun; it doesn't fit with existing lore around gods very well). basically feels like a sloppy excuse for a half-baked non-pantheon.
4e had a ton of lore for them, sure, but a lot of it isn't carried forward because, for the most part, players hated the basic premise (or disliked it enough to largely ignore it). much of what is there makes them feel like they don't belong in your Forgotten Realms game even if you're playing as one. maybe it'd be interesting for some esoteric fantasy novel, but it makes for a shit foundation to build player characters on.

4e did however succeed in creating a vocal minority of 4e dragonborn lore diehards online. but i don't typically see those people making or sharing 4e dragonborn characters. i just see them complaining on principle about the lore retcons of something they didn't ever use in the first place.

>>96915664
>Anon, I was making a joke about the name
Wrong. I win.

>>96916239
>much of what is there makes them feel like they don't belong in your Forgotten Realms game even if you're playing as one.
When I talked about 4e lore, I wasn't thinking about the shitty FR setting. Ive never really liked FR so I don't really think of it when talking about 4e. Though there is some neat stuff you can do with a S
umerian cultured Dragonborn (Unther was a Sumer expy). Marduk running around as a black and gold trimmed dragonborn was pretty cool though.

The Nentir Vale/PoL lore is a thousand times better and really fleshes out how the Dragonborn work and see themselves.

>but i don't typically see those people making or sharing 4e dragonborn characters.
I don't at least because I dont play 4e anymore (though I would still be up for a campaign). And I've moved onto incorporating the 4e dragonborn mechanics and lore into my own homebrew PF2e world. Unfortunately, I need to wait till Paizo releases the Dragon Codex for me to mine some fun shit for much cooler dragonborn heritages than 4e had. (Vorpal dragons that can snickersnack off heads, and they stay alive to be collected as treasure for its hoard. And tons of other cool dragons.)

>>96915972
I'd agree with that. The whole 'all a God-Like reptile would really want to do is dip his wick in Human Thots' backstory is just so cringey; culturally, biologically and anatomically. Let True Dragons be smug and superior, prideful and powerful, and think of Humans at best as amusing pets.

>>96916401
>Nentir Vale/PoL
trouble is almost nobody uses this, either, and it's not for quality reasons at all.
WotC made a new setting with a new, highly restrictive IP license that was basically unusable by most of the content creation capacity of the TTRPG space. for the most part, even today, nobody making third party stuff will EVER want to touch it.
which means that it was never going to get wide adoption by players and WotC is never going to have a reason to try and revisit it. it may as well not exist as far as most discussion about D&D lore is concerned.
and unfortunately that dragonborn lore is pretty untouchable for the same reason. most players don't even know it exists, and it's never going to get transferred into the FR setting (which, whether you personally seethe about it or not, is the one most people actually give a shit about) because WotC is still cagey about stuff that was made with the shitty 4e license.

>>96916652
>it may as well not exist as far as most discussion about D&D lore is concerned.
And yet it still exists and is actual lore. Most 5e players are starved for lore, and if you give them pirated pdfs of this lore they will gladly take it and use it. The one group I played my only short campaign of 5e with, loved having my old pirated pdfs of all the 4e books that had neat lore, even if they didn't like the game mechanics. And I've found that other players when talked to, love having this lore too.

Just because WotC wont revisit it, and Mearls will never share his master file of it, doesn't mean it cant see wide adoption, use, or remake.

>>96916454
>and think of Humans at best as amusing pets.
Pets, part of their hoard, pests, "loyal" subjects, etc.

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>>96871300

>>96917012
>pirating
not what i'm talking about at all. end user experience is basically irrelevant to the reason third party PUBLISHERS could never touch it (and still can't without risk). it's a legal minefield to touch, so pretty much the only publishers who would've touched it are WotC (that exclusivity was part of the point of the new license). since they won't, no one will.
the 4e license never went away - you still can't use 4e stuff with the OGL. it missed the window of adoption at a wide scale by being untouchable for third party publishers, and people like you pining for the days of 4e yore (???) and pulling lore from it just don't exist in sufficient numbers to keep it relevant. most D&D players (overwhelmingly so under the age of 45) probably don't even know what "Nentir Vale" is.
nobody is saying you can't use it at your table. what i AM saying is you have no reason to expect other people to know what you're talking about with regards to dragonborn lore from 4e's bespoke non-FR setting. what you're claiming as the identity of dragonborn was never widely adopted by anybody, and is therefore NOT the identity of dragonborn.
it's trivia at best, and that's a battle you lost over a decade ago.

>>96916454
i think painting in strokes this broad is too boring. in my settings you're only more likely to encounter a dragon like this because those are the dragons causing problems requiring direct intervention.

that little caveat applied to any antagonists gives me a lot of flexibility for both subverting expectations of dragons and double subversion that ends in betrayal.

that said, kobolds in my settings are too earnest for betrayal. they're loyal, as minions or allies, but fearful and cautious - they will hesitate and may run, but they will usually still try to return.

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here, have a classic 'bold

>>96859911
The only acceptable ones are the four top right ones

>>96923957
nah, death to gnomes and rat people

The kobolds in my setting are a magically crafted species, created by the dragon gods to serve all the lower work for the roman style dragon empire. Servants to clerics and priests, light skilled labor, tutoring young, management of household slaves, record-keeping. They are born with a natural subservience and reverence to dragons, and seek out power structures to integrate themselves into by instinct.

One of the PCs wound up in a cute relationship with a kobold shopkeeper, until he helped to kill a dragon and she instantly hated his guts.

>>96925125
>she instantly hated his guts
always much more interesting when you make stuff like this conflicted, IMO. give the PC some hope before you crush it. :P

flipping a mental switch like that is hard not to make clunky even with a "the whole species is like this" caveat (and that caveat does less for players these days; it's not as instant a buy-in as it used to be). feels most appropriate for synthetic/robotic automaton programming. maybe that's what your setting's kobolds fall under, but personally i wouldn't consider such things fully sapient.

>>96925125
>>96925310
I think
>this being killed a dragon
>therefore, this being > dragons
is more fun. I get to annoy players with adoring lizard-y fans. Maybe even start up a cult conspiracy in the background that fervently believes the players to be dragons in disguise.

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>>96914369
"Goblin" isn't even a German word is all I'm saying and has nothing to do with German folklore Kobolds.
>>96872314
They're not always friendly but the OG German Kobolds were "house guardian" (Middle German portmanteau from Kobe and Hold, meaning House/Hut and keeper/defender respectively) in the literal sense and were more akin to protective little soirits that protect your home and help around the house but also like to annoy you without causing any real damage. It was just the way of explaining why certain items were misplaced (must've been the Kobolds).

In modern Fantasy terms the German Kobold was a teasing but ultimately benevolent fey spirit.

>>96924231
Death to cutebolds, coombolds, and mini-dragonborns

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>>96927168
>coombolt

>>96927145
NTA but my understanding was that kobold was related to cobalt, as in they stole gold ore from mines and left a toxic blue rock in its place. Looking it up I have found that indeed, kobold was the germanic house spirit, while a related kobel was a form of mine spirit. The two got conflated later on, resulting in the idea of tiny blue people that play pranks on the mine workers, but the origin of kobolds is as you said and I learned a bit more today.

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In my setting kobolds are predisposed to serving the strongest thing in their area, which in 99% of cases in ye olden days were dragons. But in more modern times what the "strongest thing" is isn't so cut and dry. A city, an island nation, a wizard, a queen, etc., things that aren't "biggest and killiest creature around" can all be strong in power and stability. These new times also made kobolds realize that serving a power is not lifelong servitude and if it sucks you can try to change it or just hit the bricks. This goes hand in hand with their ability to rapidly adapt to their environment and why furbolds exist. Colder climates calls for warm fur over scales.

>>96928832
Cobalt was named after the folklore creature, not the other way around. Yes, kobolds get a whole element named after them. Disregard that "kobold" is German for "goblin" (especially since German "goblins" are not fantasy goblins at all).

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>>96929204
Let's not forget about the labautermann, which is also (though rarely) sometimes referred to as a kobold. Supposed to appear to a ship's crew when it is about to imminently sink. Obviously an ill omen, but the klabautermann themselves were usually not the source of the ship's destruction themselves. Never heard of these guys until one appeared in One Piece.

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>>96929614
>labautermann
fascinating

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>>96916454
>think of Humans at best as amusing pets.
YOU JUST KNOW!

My take on kobolds is that they're one of the oldest races, with therapsid traits and regional variances on how reptilian vs mammal they may look. But importantly, they're older than dragons, at least the kind that knights go around slaying. When the gods and primordials created the universe, many wrought mortals in their own image, to work their will within creation, subject to certain limits on their innate abilities. The true dragons, the great cosmic serpents whose coils hold reality together, made kobolds. This was a sneaky way of getting mightier dragons inyo the world, for what kobolds worship becomes a dragon. Big rock? Ankylosaur style earth dragon. Giant scary snake? Lindworm. Luck canary that's extra good at warning kobolds in the mines? Prettiest damn wyvern you ever saw. Most such dragins aren't much smarter than their original form, but should kobolds turn their faith toward a mortal, the result is a dragon capable of directing that faith and its own development, and seeking to grow the tribe, adding members to fuel new heights of draconic glory and issue challenges to the surrounding nations.
Kobolds tend to remain unaware of this effect, as it does take years of worship, allowing their memory to constantly shift. Yeah, we worship the cool big rock. Sure, it was always kind of animal shaped. Yeah, it was pretty close to that bulky lizard look since forever. It's been a statue of a dragon as long as anyone remembers. All hail Rocky, founder of our tribe!
Upper limit of power and intellect tied to overall size of the tribe and intensity of their faith.

>>96934170
So basically kobolds have a WAAAGH! field that turns things into dragons. I like it, it's neat.

>>96937266
Pretty much. Inspired by the kuo-toa fishmen who turn objects of worship into quasi-deific constructs, and "what crearures are kobolds to have both mammal and reptile traits?"
So far I've run a solo campaign and a group campaign for players who ended up as targets of kobold worship and had to start managing the tribe as they began to gain draconic traits.

>>96934170
>"Upper limit of power and intellect tied to overall size of the tribe and intensity of their faith."

>earn the faith of the 3 survivors of a destroyed kobold tribe
>INT now capped at 5

>>96934170
Cool concept.
I like it with a twist that all races, not just kobolds, anthropomorphize and animate things in their image, kobolds just happen to usually be more fervent believers, so it's easier for them.
Aforementioned Rocky was just a regular-ass rock, somewhat animal-shaped.
The constant belief molded it's form, and directed enough energy for it to develop a spiritual presence, then evolve into a proper spirit.
It's like a weird take on them japanese kami-something, or whatever they're called, and racial bias "tainting" the belief with their racial traits, forcing them on the object of worship.
I also find hilarious the idea that dragons could all be the result of kobolds' worship of some big lizards in the age of myth.

>>96945947
More that it takes a really big and fervent tribe to turn a rock into something like Smaug, most could only manage a hippo sized beast with animal intelligence, which is pretty good for starting as a rock. Three kobolds aren't enough for any effect unless they're at Raving Lunatic levels of devotion, and even then they could at most cause a faint shift in the shape of a rock or make a human sometimes feel drawn to draconic themed outfits. I prefer dragons of animal intellect, so unless the object of worship was sapient to start with, most end up barely above that point, but a human or the like would stay smart, they just need a truly huge tribe to gain more.
You'd need a few dozen kobolds to start making something even vaguely draconic, and hundreds to thousands for a proper dragon. Tens of thousands, hundreds, even millions are necessary to start expanding mental traits. Faith does boost the effect, but is more about defining 'truths' of the dragon which can alter their form and abilities. Kobolds tend to just run with obvious traits of their dragon, but a sapient object of worship can aim to direct their faith in ways to gain powers they want.

>>96945947
>the vaguely draconic thing you turn into is... another kobold
>at least you're in charge
>>96947478
sure, but i think that anon's idea is funnier

>>96947758
>it's funnier
I'll give you that, maybe it's even where most kobolds come from. Some sap saves a couple of lizards from trouble and they're so grateful, with a hint of hero worship, it turns their rescuer into another kobold. Most of those getting saved are just recently turned kobolds trying to get back to a tribe, and it adds up.

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>>96947758
>>96948181

>>96862124
This is not a would. This is a will.

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>>96934170
>>96942464
>>96947478
Fascinating ideas you have there. I'm reminded of an idea I saw on /tg/ ages ago, where Kobold Monks would meditate on things (e.g. the dying embers of a campfire) and achieve Draconic Apotheosis.

Image more Dragonborn than Kobold, but I'm too lazy to search if I have a Kobold Monk.

>>96947478
>I prefer dragons of animal intellect
No offense, but yuck. To me, that's what wyverns are for - wyvern to dragon as ape to man.
>a sapient object of worship can aim to direct their faith
I'd imagine they could also make it more fervent and thus efficient as well. Perhaps "raving lunatic"-level devotion is something that can be induced. Structure the faith, appoint a kobold clergy, do missionary work, write some holy texts, create some holy relics, etc.
Presumably it wouldn't work without kobolds, but it makes me wonder if non-kobold members of such a church can contribute to the effect directly in a reduced capacity.

>>96948839
My party warmage has a similar attitude. She's down bad for the bad girl lizard.

a short story
https://voca.ro/1jfBkIPoyKML

>>96949320
It's the reasonable response.
>>96949646
So short it doesn't exist.

>>96949320
Based, everyone wants that kobold

>>96948906
maybe he's just a REALLY buff kobold
he meditated on being swole
and did... chin exercises or something

>>96912526
if sharks and trout are both fish, technically so are you

Should kobolds be core playable in D&D, anons?

>>96960153
Hell yeah, gnomes are so let me have my race cold-war

>>96960368
Based. I always characterize that conflict as gnomes getting access to the resources and stability of humanoid civilization because they don't look as monstrous, but kobolds being as clever or MORE clever than gnomes on the whole. Kobolds are just severely limited by their circumstances in how much they can use their inventiveness, constantly chased out of places and making do in caves WITHOUT boxes of scraps... until some 'adventurers' come by for 'pest control' and destroy their homes and communities.
Maybe WotC is wary of it because there's almost no way to spin it that makes gnomes look good. It's almost impossible to avoid a subtext of
>this fully sapient 'lesser' race that everyone treats like sub-sapient pests just hates us in particular for no reason
>they're often in direct conflict with dwarves and they still don't hate dwarves NEARLY as much
>in fact the only thing they ever truly hate about dwarves is them supporting gnomes
>but, uh... we definitely dindu nuffin to earn that
>definitely they're just jealous pests- i mean people *spits*
>(and we may or may not watch the wanton invasion of their homes and slaughter of their families with sadistic glee)
I unironically think I've encountered more kobold ppayers than gnome players. Or maybe I just remember the individual kobolds better. If you've seen one gnome ADHD gremlin, you've seen most of them.

>>96960153
Yes, and it should also include a robust way to build up a race, in case someone wants to uplift some monster into a race, i.e. making sapient slimes, or a barely-sapient tarrasque tribe.

>>96960552
Do they also deny kobolds a country of their own, carpet-fireball them, and constantly encroach on their territory?

>>96866449
is that you next to him?

>>96960594
Now now, anon - they're gnomes, not goblins.

(The answer is probably yes.)

>>96906495
i think if it would be cool if some brilliant inventor settled down in with a group of kobolds and then takes all the batshit crazy unhinged ideas for inventions that hed never think about in a thousand years and finds ways to make them actually work. itd be even funnier if he views them as geniuses, thinking these things were obviously great ideas and hes just there for ironing out a couple flaws

>>96960787
take your fleas elsewhere

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>>96960985

>>96960757
I've made an NPC similar to this before. He had a couple of kobold apprentice inventors who could keep pace with him, though.

>>96871300
Witnessed.

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>>96960552
so gnomes aren't jewish... they're ISRAELI

>>96960552
>Or maybe I just remember the individual kobolds better.
This feels true to me, though it could be more of them since people often gravitate towards underdogs in a rivalry.

Kobold PCs (and NPCs) I've seen people make have escaped the "cookie cutter character design by species stereotypes" trap more than the gnomes I've seen have. Yeah, they're both frequently in the "weird lil' guy" bucket, but the character diversity of weird lil' kobolds feels much broader than the character diversity of weird lil' gnomes.

"ADHD gremlin" is something both can pull off, but I don't really see gnome players pull off much else besides that or "elf but short."

>>96963979
kek

Maybe there's a way to make a gnome character more interesting by giving them some personal shame over how their kin treat kobolds.

>>96960552
>>96964381
Remember that according RotD, the whole Kurtulmak-Garl feud started over Garl being embarrassed that his gnomes weren't hardworking like the kobolds.

>>96965530
There are multiple conflicting accounts of it. It may be coincidental, but the one that makes Garl look better also makes the least sense in current canon, and has been dropped from the lore since 3.5e. It is from a continuity where urds aren't just kobolds with wings (that change basically makes the story impossible because it requires Kuraulyek, who AFAIK doesn't exist after 3.5e), and is from an in-universe source (an elf) writing about a dream Sehanine Moonbow gave him (which in itself seemed more about defending/justifying the fact the elves created the Rage of Dragons than the kobold/urd origin myth it was described as).

That's the only one that doesn't make Garl Glittergold look like an ass. The rest - including the gnome version - involve him destroying Kurtulmak's home and trapping him in the rubble either "as a prank, bro" or out of rage.

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i think im feeling good enough about my art to try sharing it on this site again
heres a kobold cheering someone on. i think i might want to add more like earrings or clothes but now its best not to overcomplicate things
also its correct now, being in portrait orientation, but for some reason whenever i post 4chan rotates it to landscape so sorry if that happens

>>96968567
fuck me in the ass why does it keep doing that

>>96968567
cute
>>96968574
because we should have never taught rocks to think

>>96965530
>>96966896
I tend to believe the Kurtulmak side of it because Kurtulmak is often depicted as rather pragmatic and protective of kobolds for an 'evil' god, even in 'good' sources. Maglubiyet and Gruumsh could never. Even Kurtulmak's trickery domain is more about using ingenuity to survive in a world filled with things that can easily kill kobolds, not something about betrayal or harming others for personal enjoyment like Garl Glittergold's trickery domain is (e.g. 'pranks').

>>96968567
good, anon. tail's maybe a mite too thick for the body. there are some surprisingly good kobold drawing tutorials out there you might want to look for, though mostly for digital art i think.

>>96968567
If this kobold were cheering me on, I could achieve anything.

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Remember the Kobold Domain from ROTD web enhancement? I love that shit

>>96974378
5 and 9 make for some truly devastating traps

>>96968574
>>96968567
>but for some reason whenever i post 4chan rotates it to landscape
Because your phone stores the thing that says to show it in portrait as metadata. 4chan wipes the metadata of images you post (so anons don't dox themselves). Put the image on your computer, bring it into image editing software (even mspaint will do), get it the orientation you want and most importantly crop it and save that as a new file to upload.

>>96974626
thank you this helps a lot. unfortunately my computer is busted so ill have to wait a bit to make use of it

>>96855509
>thread about kobolds
>picture is of a regular human
your filename can't fool my eyes, OP

>high charisma kobold
>pretends to be a pet iguana of the queen
>eats fetuses of the local brothel

>>96975540
contributing to society

>>96975540
High charisma (likeable) or high charisma (sexy)?
And male or female?

>>96975549
Just wait till you hear its tax policy

>>96975551
>binary thinking

>you encounter an intact kobold egg in a completely destroyed kobold warren
do you take it to raise as your own, anons?

>>96855509
aren't kobolds Dogs?

>>96975931
Of course, I could use a butler

>>96975938
they ARE considered extremely hardworking. probably part of good kobold enrichment to give them a job early.

>>96975931
I've always wanted a pet lizard.

>>96975933
yes and no. japanese kobolds are dogs. when translating d&d the statement about the shape of their snouts being dog-like got misinterpreted and since then it just kind of stuck even after the mistake was noticed

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Fellow adventurers, how do you resist the urge to pick up the kobolds and carry them home?
Asking for a friend with a dozen kobolds living in my- I mean their house.

>>96960787
I like how dungeon meshi makes both, the races and individuals within those races distinctive. Probably one of the best fantasy art styles.

>>96979396
reminder that kobolds just look diferent for IP reasons and it has nothing to do with "le mistranslation".

>>96979610
>IP reasons
While the "mistranslation" part is kind of incorrect, so is this.

Dog kobolds had solidified as the image of kobolds in Japan before WotC had fully committed to lizards (although reptilian features in their descriptions in TSR stuff predate canine ones). The best explanation I've seen for what actually happened was as follows:
1. "Dog-like faces" (possibly only referring to them having snouts) is used to describe them in D&D, alongside the bark-like sound of their speech. They still have scaly skin.
2. This was rewritten/condensed as "dog-like men" in the 1983 Mentzer Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set
3. The computer game Wizardry - extremely popular in Japan - interprets the Mentzer description as literal dog men, some time in the mid- to late-1980s - this isn't so much a translation error as a literal interpretation of a specific English description that appears basically nowhere except that Basic Set.
4. Anime/manga pulls from Wizardry, and then later itself, for depictions of kobolds. The dog kobold idea has at this point been fully established in Japanese culture.

>>96923780
scorpion on a stick my beloved

>>96982150
i love the eyes lol
the rest is also very well drawn but especially the eyes

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i decided to draw another kobold learning the worst spell. its the worst since she can no longer make the excuse that shes hugging her party members for warmth.
i ran it through ibis paint so hopefully that should fix the rotation issues

>>96982244
looks like the right orientation
cute kobold

>worst spell
true strike but it lights your own hand on fire

>>96982215
it's one of my favorite kobold images
i especially like the way the scales are drawn

>>96982342
>DOCTORS HATE IT!
>do you suffer from chronic cold bloodedness? heres an easy remedy you can do at home for FREE

>>96982357
doctors probably hate it because of all the self-inflicted burn injuries clogging up their beds

>>96980033
Thing is, due to gambling laws, most japanese didn't read d&d. They read sword world (from the guy who managed to play d&d!) and campaign report fantasy books that featured the authors' personal home settings. This is why stuff like "slimes are easy level 1 fodder" spread around despite having no basis on d&d stuff.

>>96983123
thats what big alchemy wants you to think

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>>96859911
You missed the actually first D&D kobold, which is very important to the dogbold evolution.

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i came to /tg/ to sate my occasional warhammer obsession and lurk around /wfg/ again and it's refreshing to find anons discussing kobold again sometimes. have a doodle bump on me
>>96980033
think another big reason is that Mystara was extremely popular in japan to the point it was THE goto setting for DnD for them till this day. and Mystara had something like dogbolds back then that fits that description and their dog-like features were flanderized by them even now.

>>96985007
nice ti have you here i love your little guy

>>96866449
I like this depiction. Would love playing them.

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>>96985007
second bump before bed

>>96979497
Don't. Start expanding your house underground and sell things produced by your growing kobold labor force to fund your operations.

If your non-draconic nature poses an issue, simply acquire some means of casting true polymorph on yourself and turn into a dragon. You can even still spend most of your time as a humanoid with the innat transformation ability.

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>>96885759
i drew one of them myself because artists keep flaking on me

>>96986042
Wow, cute!

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>>96980033
>2. This was rewritten/condensed as "dog-like men" in the 1983 Mentzer Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set
don't forget B2 quite literally refers to them as "dog men". B2 also happens to be one of the very few modules that saw a Japanese translation

>>96985007
>>96985922
Adorable

>>96983148
Anon. Sword World came out in 1989. Three years after Dragon Quest introduced the early slimes.

I ran a high powered Pathfinder group through the Caves of Chaos. This was a one shot for a special occasion (my 55th Birthday). Player's could play what they wanted. 1 rule no evil characters. I got a great diverse group. The one for this particular story was My friend playing a Copper Dragon. What a fun time they were having as the dragon would brush off most damage dealt. Didn't bother me as GM because we were all having fun. Then they hit the Kobold caves. There's a cave at the top of an inclined tunnel. PCs are at the bottom. Kobolds in cave roll boulder down the incline Indiana Jones style. Dragon steps in front of the party to take the hit knowing his Damage Resistance will protect him. Kobolds are crafty. Boulder is paper mache. Easily breaks open on dragon. Inside? Hellwasp swarm. Think murder hornets from well...hell. Swarm bypasses his AC. fun fact about Copper Dragons Dex is their Dump stat. Blows reflex save takes 4d8 damage. The look on the players face was priceless. Moral of the story is any critter of any CR can be a challenge if played right.

>>96989699
considering the swarm rules in Pathfinder iirc, that must've been a huge pain in the ass to deal with. nice work putting them into a Tucker's Kobolds situation, though. people usually shrug off what's usually trash mobs without knowing what they can be capable off in their home turf, especially with kobold traps

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>>96927242

>>96989699
Sounds fun and creative.

Of course, with "summoned" creatures like this one can get into discussions of how to judge the strength/credit of a summoner vs. their summons. You don't even get the usual "summoner controls them" caveat here - I imagine there were quite a few stung kobolds during the making of the trap. Then again, I do not envy the life of a kobold hellwasp herder, so perhaps the credit should go to them.

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>>96990227

>>96990227
Only in golden Kamuy...

>>96986042
doll joints?

>>96994594
yes

>>96994920
but why?
and more importantly, does her snout get longer whenever she tells a lie?

>>96995147
because she was created when another kobold wished for a friend
and no

>>96995508
that's cute, but wouldn't a regular kobold be easier to find? i'm curious about this other kobold's situation now.
>and no
coward!
the people yearn for pinnochiobold

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>>96912522
>Imagine slaying a dragon then get beset by a gaggle of confused kobolds that just lost their boss and don't know what to do
plot twist, the kobolds learned necromancy from their draconic overlord and have raised him as a dracolich.
>roll for initiative
>again

>>96996363
simplified by saying "she needed a friend" but long story short since you're asking
kobolds in my setting are similar to ants, and when the queen kobold dies a new queen is born. in addition, four females are promoted as royal guards. As this particular queen was growing, two of her guards were erased from the timeline due to other things happening adjacently in the setting, and so she promoted a defector from another tribe and the wished in kobold in as her guards.

>>96990535
LoL. Well since it was a one shot I old school dungeon it. You know orcs in one room and skeletons in the next sort of map. This module just had in it's description that the kobolds practiced arts and crafts. Much of the treasure in their caves was fakes. Painted glass "Jewels". etc. But I like the concept of the Kobold Hellwasp herder.

>>96989771
Yes it was a lot of fun. A couple of my players including the dragon player are younger and missed the clue I left for them. There was an old sign that said Tucker's outside the Kobold's caves

>>96990535
Despite their name the Hellwasp swarm do not actually need to be summoned. I just did an online check rather than a book check. They have colonies. My logic at the time was normal wasp nests are like paper mache so the wasps wouldn't be to hateful of the boulder.

>>96996387
I actually had a kobold pc Warlock for a 4e game who's patron was a dracolich. Her scales were turned bone-white for her 'service', and she took necrotic spells whenever possible. She was rocking with the party on a Blues Brothers "I'm on a mission from God" style jaunt.

Twist was she was actually lovely. The Dracolich very much so DID NOT WANT to be undead and her whole mission from God was to get her shit together (and help) enough to destroy its phylactery and grant it peace. Even had a broken greatsword hilt as a spellcasting medium, but being a small kobold it worked as an actual weapon at her size. The hope was it would eventually be restored to true dragonslaying status.

I don't know how the internal conflict would've played our when she discovered the ultimate goal, the campaign ended before it got there. Dracolich Kobolds got lodged in my brain since then though.

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>>96912522
>Also, further proving your point about characterization, a PC kobold fighting the Big Bad Dragon to liberate their brethren isn't exactly hard to imagine.
Pic related, which usually comes up sooner.

>>96948906
Funnily enough, the 3.X material that embedded kobolds into D&D dragon lore actually has explicit dragon-bloodline-related meditations. It's for a Spell-Like ability with a feat to turn into a bonus level of Sorcerer casting rather than physicals, but you can VERY easily structure Internal Alchemy bullshit around forming an artificial analogue of the True Dragon organ they lack that is the source of a lot of the differences.

>>96960153
Certainly a damned sight better than Dragonborn, since they actually HAVE a clear identity established in the public consciousness beyond "dragon-man, doood!"

>>96960552
Conversely, I'd "expect" Kobolds to be utter nightmares to make any productive deals with from the terrible combination of basically every population getting ten-generation elders reinforcing How Things Have Always Been, fuck-all symbolism to distinguish which one you're dealing with, and spreading around underground as far and fast as they can get away with.

Consequently, you need a skillset typically employed by diplomats working in Elven masquerades with a secret guest list including at least a dozen niche subcultures no less than a thousand years old, which isn't as rare as you'd think from how specific that sounds thanks to Elven court intrigue getting goddamn insane when nobody under two hundred is involved but good fucking luck talking them into using it on Kobolds who've been in an area for less than a human lifetime.

>>96996705
Well you could always revisit the character in a different campaign. It's always a little tricky to resolve a "warlock's goal is destroying their patron" plot, though, unless the player either intends for the character's adventuring career to end there or has a different build (or patron) lined up.

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>>96996862
>ten-generation elders
Depends on the setting of course, but in Forgotten Realms (at least as I understand the timeline) kobolds have been around for roughly as long as sun and moon elves at least - well over 25,000 years. Granted, FR early history does get convoluted and messy, and I tend to ignore a lot of it (especially Time/Rage of Dragons stuff). I normally add a simple "kobolds are about as old as dragons" bit to the setting in the rare instances it becomes relevant.

>spreading around underground
Since they've been around for tens of millennia, I'd imagine they're basically already established anywhere they could be, albeit mostly underground. Given how poorly explored and hidden it is in most settings, one could easily put vast and powerful kobold empires underground that simply don't have much reason to bother or be bothered by anybody. A sudden "infestation" then is just some of them surfacing for whatever reason, perhaps criminal exiles or a deeper threat pushing them upwards. Their cultural tendency to value the needs of their society over their own suggests that kobolds should rarely have overpopulation problems. The "overpopulating horde" thing is a bit of characterization that was clumsily copied over from goblinoids back when that was still a thing and hasn't really persisted; we're talking from the early "a kobold is just a weaker goblin" days. It's nearly incompatible with what they are currently (cautious/cowardly and mindful of the wellbeing of their society). It's also the sort of "racist caricature inspired" type of detail that TTRPGs had been moving away from for decades even before internet culture wars.

As an aside, given the diligence and industriousness that characterizes both, I always liked the idea of an ancient, isolated (not necessarily isolationist, but it fits your ideas of needing a lot of skill with intrigue and diplomacy to deal with them), subterranean dwarven/kobold empire/alliance of some kind.

>>96999534
>Depends on the setting of course, but in Forgotten Realms (at least as I understand the timeline) kobolds have been around for roughly as long as sun and moon elves at least - well over 25,000 years.
The bit being referred to is that the technically-setting-agnostic Races of the Dragon gives them six-year adulthood and 120+ year lifespans. Thus, set-in-their-ways elders can impose very rigid behavioral norms based on almost anything on their grandchildren's grandchildren's grandchildren before they're even halfway to keeling over. And they don't have to overpopulate to use their explosive breeding capacity, it fits perfectly fine as (re)filling what territory they can hold to carrying capacity in short order before imposing population controls to stay there.

>Since they've been around for tens of millennia, I'd imagine they're basically already established anywhere they could be
Why it's relevant is that, together with little if anything resembling heraldry, it means you have to almost blindly guess what ossified high-context norms a given population has. Because in addition to populations from every single surface direction out to a rather significant distance outright missing groups in-between from happening to travel under or over instead of through, they could be from many different locals DOWN you have no meaningful information on because not one has seen sunlight in a thousand years.

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>>96982215
It's great when they got the head empty, no thoughts look.

>>97000302
>literally too short for a scabbard
>carries a longsword anyway
love this lil' dude

>>97000236
>impose very rigid behavioral norms
While I see your reasoning, in some ways a shorter childhood might assist in making them LESS indoctrinated, not more. Their childhood education can only be 6 years long at most going by RotD's numbers, so you don't have as much time to pull it off before they can effectively think independently. Plus a tribe's history is only going to last as long as the tribe itself - potentially much less than a kobold's full lifespan.

As for generational cultural holdover, they're not characterized as particularly conservative as individuals (except in regard to reverence for dragons, protectiveness of their tribe, and hatred of gnomes). If a tradition or practice appears harmful to the tribe, a tribe elder is likely to either drop it or be forced to when the rest of the tribe does anyway. They're not particularly hierarchical except when serving something like a dragon - I'd imagine a fairly democratic "council of elders" is a common kobold governing structure. However, if particular elders aren't pulling their weight in the tribe through good decisionmaking or labor... they might be relieved of "elder" duties. The tribe will come before the tradition OR the elders, and if a change to "ossified norms" would directly benefit the tribe, I think they're likelier to follow through with it than elves or dwarves.

They're quite pragmatic as a survival need.

>it fits perfectly fine as (re)filling
Yeah, it makes more sense that if they're laying a lot of eggs it's because a lot of them died or there's suddenly a raised carrying capacity in the region. That's how real population works - logistic curve, not exponential. Malthusian doomerism has always been retarded.

>no meaningful information
Provided you don't attack on sight (or break into their homes), you can possibly just ask them about it - their 'trickster' nature is more subterfuge than dishonesty. Unfortunately kobolds rarely get the benefit of the doubt.

>>96996667
Yeah, that makes sense. I just tend to treat encounters that pull new creatures in or call for reinforcements like "summoners" when I'm balancing them, hence the quotes.

>>97003262
i like the idea of a crocodile-inspired kobold design. or maybe that's more caiman than crocodile.
either way it's neat

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i wish i could see more of this little moron

>>97009672
>80% tail by mass

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>>97009672

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i have drawn another kobold i wish to share, however this one has been enhanced using the power of editing software. my art is now stronger and more powerful than ever before. however it was too powerful for 4chans puny 8mb file limit so i was forced to crop it. im certain this is the best and only way to decrease the file size

>>97010770
very cute, would follow weast

>>97010190
she bulks it up by eating lead and other metals (canon)

>>96981074
a classic indeed

>>96960153
absolutely
might even end up being more popular than gnomes (if they aren't already). halflings don't count since they're mostly taken for the crit fail protection.

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>Those numbers can't stop me because I can't count!

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>>96859911
MGE's Kobolds are pretty great

>>97016356
put it back

>>97016434
but she loves you

>>97016442
oh im sorry :(

>>97016356
>anime girl in a costume
my least favorite kind of monstergirl. closer to whatever category catgirls belong in.

>>97016281
stat-based effectiveness >>>> stat requirements >> level requirements

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bumpan with landsknechts

>>96866449
this is pretty fantastic.

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What I really hate about these My-Little-Pony-looking kobolds is that they're fucking impossible to imagine actually existing in a 3d space

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>>97020257
I think taking a look at the various dog breeds, then reimagining them as reptiles, would work to some extent.
I.e. in >>97019705 pic they would be something close to a scaly chihuahua. Picrel could be something corgi-like.
I don't know if that make sense, but it works for me, more or less.
Though now I'm imagining a borzoi-like kobold. Lanky as hell, with snoot for days.

>>97020257
if you look up "3d kobold" you'll find plenty of examples of cutebolds modeled in 3d
it's been a pretty much solved problem since Spyro

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>>97020257
You can rotate a kobold in your mind, anon.
The government can't stop you.

>>97023604
what's that weird thing on his face?

>>97025230
Some kind of sci-fi mask I guess.

What's the appeal of goblins but with scales, again? Seems like a stupid concept for fetishists.

>>97029278
yeah, unlike regular goblins which are never sexualized

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>>97029278
Obviously bait, but I'll bite.
>goblins but with scales
They already didn't belong with the "goblinoids" the moment they became even remotely reptilian. It was always a messy "category" anyway, but kobolds haven't really been "goblins but with scales" except for a time in early D&D when they were basically used as a variant goblin. The more time passed, the less goblin they were.
They exist sort of between gnomes and goblins in the popular perception of fantasy races. All three are from basically the same folklore creature, but weird variations on said creature are quite common historically. It's literally one dude (Paracelsus) writing effectively alchemical fanfiction that creates "gnomes" as a concept.
One thing many people don't realize is that the "base" version of a goblin in modern fantasy (basically just Tolkien's unilaterally evil goblins) is very unlike the folklore they're named after. Tolkien homogenized them for convenience, and then TTRPGs and later video games took the distilled evil goblins as a convenient fantasy fodder enemy. Goblins still fill that fodder enemy role, and these days more than gnomes or even kobolds do.
Kobolds are generally considered more endearing than goblins. They're individually weaker than goblins in many systems - famously the weakest things in the D&D Monster Manual at one point - and people like to root for underdogs.
In many ways the diversification of depictions today is MORE like the historical folklore was compared to mass Tolkien-ized fantasy.
Just to be clear I'm not ragging on Tolkien here or saying his goblins are bad. He'd probably have been immensely frustrated by how derivative fantasy settings became.

>>96859911
"Anime" should've been something like "Japan" in general, and showed the kobolds from Suikoden.

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>>96859940
You're missing one.

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>>96885759
They are sexy. Not very diverse tho!

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>>97039860

>>97039860
>>97039869
>pics
based on Pathfinder's new-ish "magic adapting" kobolds?

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>>97039860
that's because they're all sisters silly!

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>>97039895
No, just brainstorming with anons what enemy Kobolds you could encounter. Not related to any RP system.

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>>97040239
Touche!

>>97019705
is that a bulge

I can't stand lizard kobolds after learning about warcraft kobolds
It just makes more sense for them to be ratlike than lizardlike
This is not a nostalgia thing as I played ADnD way before playing warcraft
At this point I think it's just a nostalgia or furry thing to vouch for scales as fur makes so much sense

>>96860739
That's basically all folklore, anon.

>>97041887
i can't stand warcraft kobolds because they are literally just "we have skaven at home" plus a single stale meme about candles.

>>97042334
some of them start as giant humans too
or animals
but between those three that's pretty much all of it

>>96960153
Yes and they deserve Pack Tactics back, damn it.
And -2 to Str to go with the +2 to Dex.
Fuck NuD&D for getting rid of negative modifiers.
One of my most fun characters I ever played was a 6 Str Kobold.
Couldn't carry shit, but had 18 Charisma so I just kept convincing the Barbarian to carry everything for me.

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>>97041887
I like the lizard kobolds. It's the irony of something so small being directly related in some way to the mighty dragons.
Life if the LOTR hobbits were direct descendants of some ancient godlike race. The juxtaposition is quite intriguing.

Then, sometimes they have the potential to "evolve" into a dragon.
Turning from a little kid that gets picked on by everyone, to a badass that makes even the kings tremble.
A draconid is a draconid, whether it's a towering fire-breathing beast…
…or a diminutive humanoid lizard that you can lift up to hear it screech in anger and indignation.

>>97041829
A codpiece filled with medicine.

So how come Gnolls are just Gnolls?

If Kobolds can be dogs now, just because the Japanese thought OD&D art sucked, then how come early Gnolls got out unscathed? Yeenoghu doesn't look much better in OD&D

>>96906245
Also their Facebook,Twitter, and/or Bluesky.

>>97044613
Gnolls are not that iconic or have an old myth behind it. So furries took it and placed the hyena visuals as the default!

>>97044295
The only stat penalties I'd ever had any problem with were mental stats. A 4 point swing across Str (or potentially Con, though with kobolds Str makes more sense to me) to Dex for one of the smallest things around just feels appropriate. Not everything needs to be homogenized into "10s across the board baseline" - people aren't generally playing a 2-foot tall little lizard dude to lift boulders with him, and even if they are there are options characters have to make that penalty up (and a free character goal out of it).

Modern D&D (this was going on before 2024) congealing everything playable into "humans with decorations and an extra cantrip or something" really irks me. If every species is a cosmetic skin, there's really only one species: generic humanoid with a costume and a special extra non-ASI feat or two.

>>97047825
>So furries took it
Gnolls were described as "low intelligence beings like hyena-men" in 1977.
They were already consistently illustrated as hyena-like bipeds BEFORE 2e.

>>97040239
would give uppies

>>97047901
Thats what i meant. There was never any intend to change their look. Or there were any alternative looks. So they were always Were-Hyeanas. Than Furries came and used tham as Hyeanas. So noome can think of the, looking differently.

>>97050463
NTA but it doesn't seem like furries had anything to do with it. They were already anthropomorphic hyenas, so no one can think of them looking different because the depictions were decided very early on.

If they'd been remotely ambiguous, furries would have probably tried to use them as wolf/dog people that weren't werewolves (or Japanese kobolds). Anectdotal aside, but it seems to me like publishers have always hated non-werewolf canid people for whatever reason. One of the only exceptions is stuff based on (again, Japanese) kitsunes, but those are very rare and less like a species than a type of magical spirit. I think WotC tried to do catch-all furries with ardlings but the idea was so ass even furries didn't like it.

>>97029706
>the moment they became even remotely reptilian
Which was immediately when they were described as scaly things with dog-like heads (not dog headed, they don't have dog heads, they have heads shaped vaguely like a dogs) and rat-like (again, not a rats tail, but shaped like one) tails, with small horns.
>It was always a messy "category"
Thats because Gygax initially used it like the Old English term for small human-like monster and not the specific type of creature its become. A folkloric boggard, a nixie, a German kobold, a D&D gnome, and a Scandinavian tomte are all goblins according to English folklore. And this was true for the earliest forms of D&D. Eventually, people stopped thinking of goblins as a variety of monsters and started seeing them as a specific type of monster, namely the D&D goblin, which is when the Goblinoid type was created to specify that something was related to that creature. This is when we see the bugbear, originally just a bogeyman, become a goblinoid; and the hobgoblin become strongly related to the goblin. This is also when kobolds were roundly rejected from the goblin category, since they were not related to goblins in any fashion.

Its also funny that people think kobolds have been dogs when that's a terrible misreading of dog-like head, and ignores so much of their description and nature, as if nobody read the books. Seriously, they laid eggs in clutches for an entire edition before 3e. Not to mention the complete lack of hair and being covered in scales.

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>>96979497
>>97044388
>you can lift up to hear it screech in anger and indignation
>>97049658

>>97052316
I meant that they produced so much stuff that depicted them. It was the mass of drawings. Not that they vocally bitched they should always be were-hyenas.

>>97057149
NTA (I'm >>97047901) but that makes more sense. I do think without that it would still be consistently hyena-men, but you're right that there would be less art and cultural awareness of gnolls in general.

>>97044388
Kobolds were better when they weren't actually related to dragons but just thought they were.

>>97058074
I like the "little wannabe dragons" angle for them because it gives them such a solid identity to build on.

Kobolds in my setting were a bit like PF kobolds before Paizo made that change. I think it was a pretty common thing to do - they would take on aspects of the dragon they served, like scale color changes or breath weapon type for winged kobolds (or the odd regular kobold when I felt like keeping my players on their toes). I didn't expand it as much as Paizo did, but I like that idea too.

>>96860739
most yes

Playing a kobold monk currently. It is fun so far, he is out to get revenge for the destruction of his order. Its interesting to think of how kobolds might run a monastic order, it having a bunch of tenets surrounding usual stuff about living a modest life but also still have a bunch of kobold exceptions.

The only quasi-recurring kobold my players encountered was back in 3e. A small thing, barely worth noticing carrying a thin stick twice his height topped with a solid knot of wood with nails protruding through it making it into a makeshift great club. He was always surrounded by a large amount of mutilated humanoids and spoke in a jovial tone.
He was also the avatar of Erythnul, the god of slaughter, and the bodies were from random passerbys that flew into murderous rages and killed each other with whatever was at hand, on elf, having nothing suitable, tore the flesh off his fingetips to use his bones in order to better tear out the throat of his enemies.

Erythnul liked the party because it's body count was incredibly high and he would point us in the right direction to continue quests because "Where you go, slaughter will always accompany you".

It was one of the bigger campaigns I ran with the Gods showing up a lot to try and prevent a great cataclysm that threatened to erase the world as is it known and change the gods with it. Erythnul didn't give a shit personally because "As long as there is life, there will be slaughter. My name may change, but my station never will." It was kinda meta because the "great cataclysm" was the arrival of 4e changing a lot of lore and such.

>>97063498
Seems like that would work pretty well for kobolds. Maybe the monastery they lived in was like Buddhist cave temples.

>>97066896
That's a neat idea, still workshopping the larger backstory about the monastery and its tenets. The two things that inspired the character were the realization the monks can use dex instead of str and that the idea of playing kobold Kenshiro would be funny. I do intend to play him close to that idea, with his core driving belief to right the injustice in the world despite only being 3ft tall. I want to avoid making him a one note joke character if at all possible.

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>>96859911
>anime
but the character is based on the elementals than the DuD mixing bowl.

>>97067753
>I want to avoid making him a one note joke character
Sounds like you're well on your way to that. One thing I like to do is a mix of character details/personality traits that are completely irrelevant to their race plus details that are. Feels to me like it gives more depth when you can do both, and it's between the extremes (uncreative) people whine about as an excuse to whine about non-human characters: they aren't humans in costume or living stereotypes.

Maybe he misses the wine or cheese the monastery used to make. Maybe he enjoys protecting people who are larger than him - and the reactions those people have to a kobold doing so. Those sorts of things.

Mileage may vary, but to me even just a handful of minor details like that can add a surprising amount of depth to a character for not that much effort.

>>97076358
i love wwi trench warfare kobolds
goobone (the artist) is also pretty accurate with the guns and equipment

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thoughts on this fuckin' weirdo?

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>>97079533
A surprising large amount of people have the same idea. Kobolds were made to die in the trenches.

>>97083731
I'm really not keen on the smashed and slammed look of pathfinder kobolds. They are distinctive yes but they look a bit silly. They codified them during the period where they were trying to make a strong brand identity apart from DnD.

>>96960787
>>96980033
This reminds me that I've wanted to do something with dogbolds for a while now, but I'm not sure what precisely. Especially since I want to try to differentiate them a bit from the standard kobold depiction...

>>96916401
in my settings and character concepts i've started leaning to the idea of making Dragonborn culturally German/Germanic

>>97084051
>They are distinctive yes but they look a bit silly.
I can't stand the heads. Or the general neck-less-ness.

>>96906495
in germany they still use their word “Kobold” for “goblin in ttrpgs,”; they typically use the invented tweaked-word “Kobolt” for the modern DnD lil’ draconian mobs.
I found this out when playing in Stuttgart

some games also write them as Drachenkobold (dragon-goblin) Schuppenkobold (scale-goblin) Minidrache (mini-drake) or Klein-Drache (i think the best translation would be Dragonling?)

>>97095855
>Drachenkobold
I don't speak German, but I think this one's my favorite out of the terms you listed.

>>97095855
>Kobolt
>changes the voicing of the consonant
I guess it would be like english speakers calling kobolds "Koblins" or or "Goplins"

>>97083731
Never liked pathfinder's kobolds. Or their goblins. PF was trying to hard to be "our own D&D with blackjack and hookers" but went too far with making things ugly for the sake of being different.

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i made another one
do i add another bow or some other features?
besides hands and feet any mistakes?
where is their room for improvement?