The Nature of Kobolds
She nods and she opens the second crate, revealing a book bound in some sort of exotic leather, carefully setting it down on a sheet of fabric.
It's also written in Elven, but the topic of this one is, roughly translated, "The nature of Kobolds"
It's incredibly old, judging by the writing and foreward page it's a 5,000 year old copy of a set of scrolls that were, at the time, 10,000 years old. That set of scrolls were made from the oral history and knowledge from a kobold tribe and their historical tablets that went back over 20,000 years before that.
The book is eerie, and speaks in a blunt dialect that treats insults as though they were titles. Extra time has to be spent deciphering complex compound words that are draconic in origin but half converted to Elven.
The work was too involved for conversation to split it, and the incredible pressure to make sure it was done perfectly...
At some point in the late of the night, the Pen became involved, writing on a separate blank piece of paper to help translate sections that made little to no sense in modern tongue.
But the subject matter...
This kobold tribe was ruled by a kobold king called a dragyn. Not a dragon, that was distinct and different in this text, as were gradon and dragan. It was painful.
Dragyn were honored leaders.
Dragan were those who apparently had been dragons at some point. A dragyn could be a dragan but not a dragon. Gradons were dragons that had once been a dragyn but given their mortal forms for the safety of others.
This text treated so much knowledge as already being well known that there were huge gaps in knowledge, such as how a kobold could become a dragon, but Arwel had some personal insight into that.
The tribe at subject in this book was explaining to the original Elven explorers how their most recent king rose to power. He'd been an ordinary kobold and then when his village was raided by a rival tribe's dragons, he'd broken one of them somehow.
Turned them back into a kobold, and then stolen their power.
The king had become a dragon, then pushed back the invaders before becoming a dragan, a former dragon.
It was apparently a high honor and sign of personal strength to be a dragon for a very short period of time, and he'd been one for less than a day.
After this, he'd traveled to the capital and raised a fuss about dragons being allowed to believe that they had gods of their own, not just kobold gods which could be worshipped in part by worshipping only one fifth of the whole being.
An example was even given.
The great Kobold Layer Of Eggs has five aspects as all Kobolds do.
The Layer is Hlal, the laughter. Kereska, the magic. Garyx, the fire of renewal. Zotha, the waters of life. And Tamara, the healing of love.
Anyway, after the king raised a fuss, the kingdom was split, many relatives of dragons or dragons themselves believing that it's unfair to continue treating them as only part of a kobold, while many kobolds sided with the king.
The king eventually was placed into power by a popular uprising and coup.
He (at the time of the first version of this book) ruled over the largest kobold nation known, often believed by Elves to be a dragon nation.
The king was represented in many different ways in the book.
When speaking as a leader, the kobolds refer to him as his gold dragon self Bahamut.
When speaking as a friend, he is the introverted green dragon Lymmerit.
When a family member, a father, he is the steadfast steel dragon Kekil.
When a warrior, he is the quiet, but fierce white dragon Auwhea.
When a philosopher he is the deeply keen silver dragon Mek.
The writer of the book, and all future rewritings, interpret this as a cultural way to refer to an individual by their mood and intentions, and that many writings about dragons by kobolds in the past may have actually been about kobolds, but referring to them in a specific context.
The author's notes from the original scrolls detail the nature of the tribe. By the point of the interview, the king from the legend had died of old age, and a new queen had taken over. One which seemed to lean heavily towards one of her aspects, and it was suggested may soon become a dragon, not to save anyone or as a temporary measure, but permanently. This was a new trend of kobolds becoming dragons and claiming that singular identity for the rest of their lives, and it was extremely divisive. The first author implied that this very legend and it's tablets might not survive another hundred years as the ascendant dragons took over.
