Luck

“Serendipity and calamity shake all life like a bulette caught in an earthquake. Observe the practices and avoid the taboos to avert the tremors of misfortune. Craft and revere totems so that your good fortune drifts to others – and so that others’ windfalls drift back to you.” - Arix, kobold expert on luck and other metaphysical matters

Luck is a common term across species, but for kobolds, and cultures who have or interact with many kobolds, it’s a verifiable force. Kobolds are the planar-wide expert on the topic, as they alone have a fundamental sense for the force of luck.
According to kobolds, luck is best thought of as a flow, just like the The Tide is. It permeates all of space, and flows through all living things. Just as divine magic comes from the gods, luck comes from mortal creatures. Every single action one takes generates luck, however most actions create such a small amount of it, it’s completely unnoticeable in isolation. Thus, the term "making one’s own luck" is quite literal in many respects.

Defining Luck

Luck comes in two forms, both aptly named; good luck and bad luck. Good luck is a felicitous, life-sustaining force, and an abundance of good luck leads to prosperity, good health, and high wealth. Bad luck is a ruinous, dreadful force. Too much bad luck leads to injury, destitution, and even death. Though the concepts are simple, luck is inscrutable, and impossible to predict with complete accuracy.
When luck is produced, it scatters into the surroundings, and joins the extant flow of luck. Rather than being one homogenous current, a region’s luck has many currents of good and bad luck. Good luck and bad luck are created based on the principles of reciprocity and similarity.
Reciprocity is the principle that acts are produced by imitating them. Thus, a wealthy kobold may bury expensive goods in order to curry good luck in her community. Similarly, a kobold may not disturb a corpse for fear that the corpse may animate and disturb the kobold right back. The principle of similarity dictates how luck flows. The more similarities two things share, the easier it is for luck, good and bad alike, to flow from one to another. Thus, a kobold will share a roaring current of luck with their twin, a strong current of luck with their community, and a tiny stream of luck with a creature from a faraway land, and of a different race. That stream may strengthen as they learn more about each other and begin to establish similarities, however.
Determining what specifically brings about good or bad luck is difficult at best. Things that bring about good luck are known as practices, while things that bring about bad luck are taboos. Ergo, a baker may follow the practice of feeding every 13th loaf of bread to livestock in order to invite a healthy, disease free population. Similarly, a kobold may avoid the taboo of walking backwards, lest they stumble into the jaws of a hidden predator in the near future. Practices and taboos are generally discovered rather than learned, and they change from creature to creature, and from community to community. It’s not unheard of for a practice of one settlement to be a taboo in another, which may strain relations.

Manipulating Luck

Vizards

It’s impossible to know how the tides of luck will shift based on every little action, so kobolds create ritual objects that store and concentrate luck. The first of these are vizards, masks made of wood, bones, clay, metal, or a plethora of other materials. The exact make and design of vizards is a very personal thing. Every vizard has two sides; a public facing side, and a self-facing side. Some vizards are ostentatious and gaudy, festooned with various items to invite good luck. Other vizards are very simplistic, and might be mistaken for a completely normal mask. The inside of a vizard is marked with etchings and symbols meant to ward off bad luck in accordance to that individual’s taboos. To look upon the self-facing side of another’s vizard is an extreme taboo, to the point that phrases like “he/she knows the inside of everyone’s vizard” or “he/she is peeking into my vizard” express that someone is a gossip, or overbearing, respectively. Kobolds wear these masks when they feel the need to draw upon their caches of good luck, or suspect they may soon encounter bad luck they need to ward off, such as when adventuring out of their settlements or meeting a foreign delegation.

Totems

The second of these ritual items are totems. Totems belong to a community rather than an individual, and serve as overflow-valves of luck. Totems redistribute prosperity and fortune to the community it presides over, and it collects the tides of good luck that flow through the area and that are given off by the actions of its constituents. Those down on their luck pray to their community’s totem, hoping that those closest to them have a surplus of good luck they can draw on. If a foreigner were to pray to a totem, it would have no effect, as they aren’t a part of the same tides of luck as the totem. In other words, they violate the principle of similarity, and thus are unaffected by that totem.
Totems are often personified, and may take the shape of people, animals, nearby landmarks, or other images significant to its community. Totem shrines are often the most opulent buildings in a community, as giving to a totem is giving to one’s own community. Diviners and community leaders often are responsible for overseeing the health of a totem. This is because totems reflect the community they preside over; one of the few ways to learn of taboos is to decipher the esoteric mysteries within the totems. Totems can distribute luck both good and bad, and so communities are constantly on the lookout for sources of bad luck that would pollute or sicken the totem. Thus, members who consistently commit taboos are exiled or worse, depending on the community.

by Age of Fear

Luck in the World of Argent

Though the force of luck is fundamentally agnostic, some cultures ascribe certain gods as governors of luck. This is particularly common amongst cultures that were already pious, and learned about luck as a force through contact with orthodox kobold cultures. Some cultures attribute good and bad luck to Liphan and Deshai respectively. Others believe that Deshai presides over good and bad luck alike, and that luck is simply a string of fate for her to tug upon. Others still believe Shiwa oversees the flow of luck, as the knower of all things. And of course, many believe luck is just the 'physical' representation of Shi'para, just as the moon is to Icae. Some cultures mix these views, seeing it as a joint effort of several gods. When it comes to orthodox kobold culture, however, luck is not the domain of any god; it simply exists.

Author’s Note: In this article, kobolds will be used as the default creature when giving examples. However, luck is not unique to kobolds, and any creature who followed these practices would see similar results.