Kobold

Tunnelers and Builders. Kobolds make up for their physical ineptitude with a cleverness for trap making and tunneling. Their lairs consist of low tunnels through which they move easily but which hinder larger humanoids. Kobolds also riddle their lairs with traps.
The most insidious kobold traps make use of natural hazards and other creatures. A trip wire might connect to a spring-loaded trap that hurls clay pots of flesheating green slime or flings crates of venomous giant centipedes at intruders.
The Lost God. In addition to the dragons they revere, kobolds worship a lesser god named Kurtulmak. Legends speak of how Kurtulmak served as Tiamat's vassal in the Nine Hells until Gar! Glittergold, the god of gnomes, stole a trinket from the Dragori Queen's hoard. Tiamat sent Kurtulmak to retrieve the trinket, but Gar! Glittergold played a trick on him, collapsing the earth and trapping the kobold god in an underground maze for eternity. For this reason, kobolds hate gnomes and pranks of any kind. Kurtulmak's most devoted worshipers dedicate themselves to finding and releasing their lost god from his prison-maze.
Kobold society is gregarious and built around the clan, matriarchal lines of descent, male kings, and the crucial importance of clutch-mates (those who hatched about the same time, the closest things kobolds have to brothers and sisters). Few kobolds become adventurers, and most of those who do have either offended a kobold king (and been exiled from the mines as punishment) or have lost many or all of their clutch-mates (so they leave home to grieve and to find new friends). In many cases, a kobold “adopts” an adventuring party as new clutch-mates.

Basic Information

Genetics and Reproduction

KoboIds are egg-laying creatures. They mature quickly and can live to be "great wyrms" more than a century old. However, many kobolds perish before they reach the end of their first decade. Physically weak, they are easy prey for predators. This vulnerability forces them to band together. Their superior numbers can win battles against powerful adversaries, but often with massive casualties on the kobold side.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Trapmaking is an obsession for kobolds, who regard their racial craft as an art form. Kobolds realized long ago that for every trap installed around their lair, another kobold life is spared... or more importantly, kept out of melee combat.
Consequently, a dedicated and proven trapsmith is the closest equivalent that kobolds come to a celebrity in their society. For this reason, all kobolds aspire to protect their homes with especially devious traps, wanting to be respected as a trapsmith on some level. It is not uncommon to find entire kobold communities participating in the construction of a particularly complicated trap (not unlike a barn raising).
Protecting the tribal lair from invaders, and gnomes in particular, is the highest priority of Kobold lairs.

Kobolds are closely allied with and related to dragonborn, drakes, and dragons. The kobold kings (and there are oh‑so‑many kobold kings, since no kobold ruler is satisfied with being merely a chieftain) admire dragons as the greatest sources of wisdom, power, and proper behavior.

Kobolds are craven reptilian humanoids that worship dragons as demigods and serve them as minions and toadies. Kobolds inhabit dragons' lairs when they can but more commonly infest dungeons, gathering treasures and trinkets to add to their own tiny hoards.

More than anything, kobolds are survivors. Their scaly skin and keen night vision as well as their dextrous claws and sensitive snouts make them quick to sense danger, and their clawed feet move them out of danger with cowardly speed. They are small but fierce when fighting on their own terms, and their weight of numbers helps them survive in places where larger but less numerous races can’t sustain a settlement. Kobolds are great miners, good gearsmiths, and modest alchemists, and they have a curiosity about the world that frequently gets them into trouble.

Genetic Ancestor(s)

• Kobold

Genetic Descendants

• Kobold

Underworld Merchants. Kobolds are merchants to both the surface world and the world beneath it, with their greatest cities hidden deep below the earth. Their enemies are the diabolical gnomes, the dwarves, and any other mining races that seek dominance of dark, rich territories.