We have finally reached Book 2! The very first thing my party wants to get set up is their kobold cavalry... They envision kobolds astride Tatzylwyrms, patrolling through the forests.
Would the Tatzylwyrms *ever* agree to being used as mounts? By creatures that are barely smaller than them, no less?
How would you train such an exotic cavalry!
And of course this is just the start of their shenanigans...
The kobolds should have a healthy fear of the Tatzlwyrms.
I mean, dragons enslave kobolds all the time... And these things look vile enough..
Tatzlwyrms could be hungry enough...
I would have my council advise against it :)
My group has intelligent spiders on their side - the children of their diplomat, no less - who agreed after some negotiations to serve as mounts for the Sootscales. Not so sure you'd be able to pull that kind of thing off with the Tatzlwyrms, since they aren't really intelligent enough to negotiate with.
I like to reward out-of-the-box thinking, but unless they can come up with some way to keep these things in check, I think the only thing that would be able to work would be training one from birth. According to the article in Stolen Land, a newborn Tatzlwyrm grows to full size in 6 months. If your players can get their hands on some eggs, I'd say those would be more amenable to training than trying to persuade a live one.
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Kobolds wouldn't have the culture to even begin to know how to groom, train, rear, and care for mounts. Tatzlwyrms are feral beasts; you'd be just as successful asking your human population to try and catch wolverines and train them to hunt rats like house cats.
Anyways, what do the kobolds think of this? I wouldn't shoot down every idea of the players, but surely the kobolds wouldn't be keen on trying to domesticate something that eats them.
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Kobolds wouldn't have the culture to even begin to know how to groom, train, rear, and care for mounts.
Actually I have to pretty strongly disagree with that. PF hasn't touched on them much, admittedly, but at least if 3.5 lore is allowed Kobolds regularly bred, raised, and trained Dire Weasels as mounts.
I'm sure once Kobolds of Golarion comes out it'll clear up whether or not that made the transition, but I see no reason to assume not until proven otherwise.
Alright lets sort some things out shall we...
1) Tatzlwyrms are medium and thus large enough to serve as a Kobold's mount as they are size small.
2) Tatzlwyms have a 5 Int and comprehend Draconic which kobolds also speak.
3) Tazlwytms are neutrally aligned, territorial carnivores with a hoarding instinct. This would be a barrier for domestication but not an impossible one (worgs for example.)
4) Ecologically it takes roughly 5-6 generations of selective breeding to develop traits (as evidenced in Russia with he Artic Fox in a RL experiment.) Tatzlwyrms mature in 6 months live to about 20 and gave clutches o 1-3 eggs. Assuming charm monster is used to force faster than normal breeding, you're looking at 6*6 months or 3 years per trait you want to breed in. That's with a DM that wants to play nice.
5) The Tazlwym has spines from head to tail so that would need addressing, they also have only 2 legs and use serpentine locomotion which would be a difficult ride (again not impossible.)
Overall: Its doable, possibly even worthwhile but the PCs will need to invest resources and in my opinion are looking at at least 12 years to truly domesticate and breed some desirable traits into Tatzlwyrms. The aggressive tendencies, the hoarding tendencies, and the territorial tendencies are all separate traits that need breeding out. The loyalty to a "master" would need to be bred into the species, that's 4 traits and 36 hastened generations.
The result would be a mount with a base land speed of 30ft movement, that was a weak breath weapon, a decent bite attack, stealth options, and allot more intelligence then most mounts. It would however require meat with is a more resource heavy upkeep when it comes to say military consumption and its ability to grapple is useless with a rider, its breath weapon is difficult if not impossible to use in mass combat, and its not faster than a footman.
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Kobolds wouldn't have the culture to even begin to know how to groom, train, rear, and care for mounts.Actually I have to pretty strongly disagree with that. PF hasn't touched on them much, admittedly, but at least if 3.5 lore is allowed Kobolds regularly bred, raised, and trained Dire Weasels as mounts.
I'm sure once Kobolds of Golarion comes out it'll clear up whether or not that made the transition, but I see no reason to assume not until proven otherwise.
True, in D&D 3.5 it was noted that domesticating giant weasels as mounts was one of the kobold's greatest achievements. Perhaps instead of tatzlwyrms, the party can import some giant weasels to the area?
I say yes, because this sounds like a bad ass idea. Very thematic (both dragons) and super cool.
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Kobolds riding tatzlwyrms invokes the rule of cool to me, meaning one of their shaman or druids manage to find a way to make it happen, even if it means creating a Accelerate Tatzlwyrm Growth spell. :)
Perhaps the kobolds discover a special mixture of moon radishes and fangberries that cause the tatzlwyrms to become more docile and trainable or is so tasty they crave it and are willing to serve the kobolds to get it, like drug addicts.
You can come up with lots of ways to explain it if you are the GM. :)
If you want to let it happen indeed you are the GM. I'd make them work for it (like capturing 3 sets of Tatzlwyrms along with their egg clutches,) and I'd make them spend some BP on it (kennel same cost as stable, maybe a special trainer costs 2 consumption a month.)
My crew is about to try something similar with trollhounds though they are already mostly domesticated. I ruled curing the disease they give in their bite which I am also assuming they have helps their temperament some, as does providing enough meat.
Losing the disease attack might lower their CR a touch but I'm giving them 2 extra con and strength to represent the lack of disease in their systems, and the war trained bit should balance to cr 4-5 which will be awsome until level 9 or so, maybe by then they'll equip the hounds...
Namewise I'm suggesting munchie and biter as names...
We have finally reached Book 2! The very first thing my party wants to get set up is their kobold cavalry... They envision kobolds astride Tatzylwyrms, patrolling through the forests.
Would the Tatzylwyrms *ever* agree to being used as mounts? By creatures that are barely smaller than them, no less?
How would you train such an exotic cavalry!
And of course this is just the start of their shenanigans...
I think this is a great idea and should be rewarded for it's ingenuity, cleverness, and 'cool factor'.
As far as the mechanics, I like the thoughts presented above of:
1) Questing to find the eggs to hatch the initial brood
2) Using a stable as a base building to generate the units, with an increased upkeep cost
3) Making the group sink some time into it for a long term reward. Perhaps making the first army available in conjunction with the events that kick off AP4?
This gives you as GM a lot of room for hilarity, as well as creates another fantastic plot anchor to work from. I could see all sorts of awesome happening - consider this yoinked for my own game, should the players want to explore it!
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This is probably better than my idea to have them riding Bulletes. At the very least, more thematic.
some kobolds are in fact quite good at training creatures to help them.
link, check out the alternate racial traits.
i also think this would be a great idea. maybe even give them an airborne division of giant wasp riders.
I was thinking of having the Kobolds as a vassal Kingdom to the Humans. I was thinking that they'd be more of a city state, and far from the more optimally run human Kingdom.
I think you might allow it for cool factor. Perhaps only Kobold leaders ride them for the first 6 years, after that, small cavalry troops would be possible. I agree that maintenance should be expensive.
Depending on your campaign however, a side quest may be for the players to obtain more appropriate mounts for the Kobolds.
i.e. everyone knows that the northern Kobolds are more prosperous due to lack of competition with the 'civilized' races, and they have domesticated and trained Dire WWeasels. The players can go and negotiate with those Kobolds, to bring a trainer and a few Dire Weasels.
This brings in a more extra territoriality into the campaign, which I think is good.
In my game there are vassal states for kobolds, orcs, a brevic noble's ranger company, knights, dwarves, ect... works out fine.
Here's a quick render of a Kobold Tatzlwyrm Rider. Its desktop sized for download.
I was looking through the Ultimate Campaign guide for troop ideas. The biggest concern that I can see is that these blighters are more powerful than the average Kobold. I don't see the regular rules as being very effective at working this out.
I think that the breath weapon\grab would be effectively 'Bleed 1D6'. Since Tatzlwyrm's are carnivorous, I'd increase their base consumption by one size category.
In the new rules, troops that die do permanent damage to your kingdom's Economy, Stability, etc. The fact is that these guy's would effectively have a bit of a glass jaw in battle and are a liability compared to a large group of human troops. I'd use them largely defensively, since they are fast, and can dish out some effective one shot stings with Dirty fighting, at Night, with Tatzlwyrms.
Anyways that's my two coppers.