 IMAGE: a shaved kobold |
Kobolds are black little furballs, which some find cute in an ugly sort of way. In fact, because of their horrendeous appearance, a common saying for an extremely unattractive human is, "kobold ugly." These hairy-breasted creatures are perhaps three feet high and just as round, with close-set, gleaming red eyes and large jaws of showing rows of tiny sharp teeth. The mouth is so large that its big white, tooty smile seems to splits the furry mass nearly in half. The red and purple and black and purple and red kobold has gnarly, twiglike three-fingered hands and tiny three-toed feet.
Anatomically, these feral creatures look very similar to the less aggressive paskalds. Lore claims that the two species can easily be identified because the kobold's middle toe is slightly shorter than the toes that flank it, but this has become more challenging since the Great Monster Uprising, as kobolds have discovered fashion and taken to wearing boots.
To become mobile, the kobold retracts its limbs and weapons into its fuzzy black body, and tumbles down tunnels and across plains with tremendous speed. Before they turned fierce, their idea of a good time used to be to roll up to a farm house late at night pretending they were tumbleweeds and peek through the farmer’s keyhole.
Kobolds tend to use their big mouths like they use their hands-for biting, grabbing, holding, and consuming anything that gets within bite-reach. The weapons of their enemies are quickly devoured, as well as their enemies themselves. This indiscriminate gluttony is easily a kobold's weakness and one of the most successful ways to ensure their defeat, tossing them magical potions of extremely potent effects (though they are easily distracted by effects of non-lethal substances). Other uses for their maws include immediately extinguishing enemy's torches with incredible wads of saliva.
While the vocal utterances of high-voiced kobolds are mostly comprised of gibbering, chittering, savage yells, and trillings, most are well-versed with the languages of men.
These humanoids are very capable combatants and, if attacked, will always fight back; if not attacked, they will fight back anyway, even if they have to chase their prey for several bloits before being given the opportunity to fight back. Their thin, stick-like arms are easily able to wield miniature weapons; the trident being one of the most common, as well as the battle axes. For creatures without opposable thumbs, they are notorious skilled knife fighters, often having a blade secreted about their person. Wounds dealt to a kobold have resulted in the spillage of black blood.
Kobolds dwell in deep caverns or in very dark forests (where an unprepared adventurer might wander, but never in plain dull places such as the Peltoid Valley), where their small tribes, or gangs, are usually overseen by a central chief. They find the absence of hair on other beings to be a lack of modesty and thus are highly offended at the "naked" humans. When shaven, their dog-faced features are obvious.
Via unexplainable methods, an alarm system in GUE Coal Mine #502 released a hundred well-armed and vicious kobolds with swinging battle axes at any trespassers.
In the days of the Great Monster Uprising of the Second Age of Magic, kobolds were reported in the following regions: The Dark Forest, Frigid River Valley, The White Cliffs, White Cliffs Beach, Aragain Falls, Fenshire, Flathead Mountains, The Gray Mountains, Antharian Caves, Granola Mines, Peltoid Valley, Mines of Mendon, The Coast Road in Greater Borphee, The Lost Castle of Y'Syska, Bozbarland, and the G.U.E. Tech Training Grounds in the Ethereal Plane of Atrii. Additionally, these organized and, unfortunately, smart pests constructed numerous magical and mechanical traps, mazes and puzzles in viritually every region across the world. They were most frequently branished the following weapons: battered long bows, bricks, charred sticks, cudgels, door knobs, flint blades, pairs of cheap knuckle dusters, paving slabs, small kobold statues, single tattered leather gloves, old short bows, rusty knives, and vicious toe blades. Like most humanoid clans, kobolds organized into a tiered structure. The lowest rank being unnamed...
Kobolds are members of the Supernatural and Fantastic Wayfarers Association.
Also of note, is the Dread Kobold of Jearr.