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I speak, of course, of the kobold. Yes, there are these new little dragon-men things running around, and they must have hideously powerful mind-altering magic, because they have convinced large numbers of people that they are kobolds. But what of the yappy dog-men of the past? Why hath thou forsaken the true kobolds, Paizo?
This was something that confused me since 3.0 came out. Why did Kobolds go from Furry dog men type things to lizardlike yet not as cool as lizardfolk dragon descended things? Even popular media of the past showed them as dog men such as the MMORPG Everquest and the anime Record of Lodoss war. It was a little to similar to Lizardfolks for me but I rolled with it and have been rolling with it since
Erm, Kobolds are draconic humanoids since the beginning of 3ed. And frankly, after Meepo there is no turning back :)
Haha, Meepo! The name conjured up some nice memories. One of my last D&D sessions with my old buddies before I relocated to another country. The Sunless Citadel was a cool adventure!
I speak, of course, of the kobold. Yes, there are these new little dragon-men things running around, and they must have hideously powerful mind-altering magic, because they have convinced large numbers of people that they are kobolds. But what of the yappy dog-men of the past? Why hath thou forsaken the true kobolds, Paizo?
I have used lizard-like kobolds since 1E. Especially once Grenadier did their great Kobold Minis (with adventurers gear...including a femals kobold) back in the 80's.
2nd edition Kobold: http://www.dotd.com/mm/kobold.gif
Some popular media pictures of Kobolds outside of D&D sources
Record of Lodoss war (anime): http://a7.idata.over-blog.com/599x468/0/50/15/29/kobold.jpg
Everquest (MMORPG): http://www.goberserker.com/images/epic/Kobold.jpg
Everquest 2 (MMORPG): http://eq2.eqtraders.com/images/articles/kobold.jpg
World of warcraft (MMORPG): http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk2/Chicktopus/kobold.jpg
After finding those pictures I think the dog man was another casualty of 3.0 and I do admit the idea of Dragon descended creatures appeals to me and I believe a good story element is important for monsters. Did the 1st edition Kobolds have some kind of story element or were they just Kill first never ask questions creatures?
Some popular media pictures of Kobolds outside of D&D sources
Record of Lodoss war (anime):
Everquest (MMORPG):
Everquest 2 (MMORPG):
World of warcraft (MMORPG):After finding those pictures I think the dog man was another casualty of 3.0 and I do admit the idea of Dragon descended creatures appeals to me and I believe a good story element is important for monsters. Did the 1st edition Kobolds have some kind of story element or were they just Kill first never ask questions creatures?
Fixed them thar links
Even in 1st edition, Kobolds had scales and laid eggs, so they were reptilian with dog like heads.
The Suikoden Kobold. The Playstation games, if you didn't know.
Two things are wrong with this thread, or at least with the original post:
1.: Paizo did not do this, Wizards did in 3e
2.: Those dog-kobolds of former editions aren't really true to real-world kobold folklore either.
It would help this discussion out a lot if the dog-boosters would actually, y'know, pay attention to those pointing out the straight facts of 1st Edition instead of simply restating their erroneous stance over and over.
*clears throat*
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS KOBOLDS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN REPTILES. ALWAYS.
Yes, they've got a yappy-dog vibe and a canine cast to their features (especially in 1st Ed), but they have SCALES AND HORNS and A COMPLETE LACK OF FUR. And they LAY EGGS.
Now, I like Suikoden as much as the next addict, but their kobolds are NOT D&D kobolds. 'Kay?
Yep they had yeppy voices, still do I think and some dog-like features but were reptiles. All wotc did was embrace that. It was confusing we had reptiles that had dog like faces, but no fur and had horns, laid eggs and all that good stuff
I'll take the new look over the old one every day of the week
I've long been thinking that kobolds could have evolved from a cynodont or therapsid line that did developed a dog-like skull but did not develope other mammalian features.
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I think it's something like the Klingons of Star Trek. In the original series, we first meet them. However, when we see them again in the movies and the other series, they are quite obviously a different race. My theory, the true Klingons are simply manipulating galactic politics from behind the veil of their knobby-headed puppets.
Likewise, the yappy dog-men of days past have decided to retire from their old occupations of cannon fodder, walking scabbard, etc. They gathered together their most powerful sorcerers, and altered the minds of all who dwell on Golarion. A degenerate, debased, and stunted breed of lizard-man was substituted for the kobolds in the minds of Golarion's population. These puppets do the grunt work, and whatever minimal profits/benefits they manage to accumulate are given to the true kobold masters.
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I use both.
Yappy dog-men are called kobolds. They can run on all fours at move 30, despite their small size. They are furry. They are cravenly. They are surprisingly good at smithing and metalcraft, and the evil humanoids races (particularly hobgoblins) often enslave them to serve as miners and armor/weaponsmiths.
Scaly ego-maniacs who think that they are descended from dragons, actually are descended from dragons, and they are called wyrmkin. While they now breed true, they were originally created from unfertilized dragon eggs, from which up to a half dozen wyrmkin (the same color as their mother) can hatch. A female dragon can lay a clutch of eggs every year, and if she eschews the company of males of her species, can have quite the little collection of wyrmkin doting on her every whim. (Many dragons have no patience for the creatures and either devour their own unfertilized eggs, wait for the wyrmkin to hatch and then devour them, or leave the eggs somewhere far from their lair to pester other people.) The vast majority of wyrmkin are 'free-range,' the product of a long line of mommy wyrmkin and daddy wyrmkin, abandoned many generations ago by some annoyed dragoness, and only dream of being the servants of a dragon-mommy...
This way, I get to have the 'Bree-Yark' kobolds of the Caves of Chaos (mixed with a smidge of some other kobolds), but also have the reptilian dragon-touched critters of 3rd edition.
This way, I get to have the 'Bree-Yark' kobolds of the Caves of Chaos (mixed with a smidge of some other kobolds), but also have the reptilian dragon-touched critters of 3rd edition.
Not to nit-pick, but "bree-yark" was the goblins...
I think the yappy, dog-like qualities of kobolds tended to be reinforced by the animation in the Baldur's Gate series. Granted, they were yappy and dog-like, but still reptilian. I don't have a problem with them thinking they're dragonborn. They're still small, sneaky, cowardly creatures, only putting on a brave front when they have the odds in their favor. No real conflict here.
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I remember Set detailing his 'Tale of Two Kobolds' last year; I liked it then and I like it now.
We had a very long running home game thathad two subtypes of kobolds as well; the difference among these two sub races more comparable to gnomes differs from deep gnomes and 2nd ed’s forest gnomes.
And the same home game had both hyena/lion like desert plains living gnolls/flinds and the deep forest dwelling wolf like skaven.
And ...
Bree-yark ! (My gobs in that Basic/1st ed mod were led by a filthy LE but highly intelligent Halfling thief ... who once was a OCD clean CG Halfling thief who had the misfortune of donning a Helm of Opposite Alignment.
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A female dragon can lay a clutch of eggs every year, and if she eschews the company of males of her species, can have quite the little collection of wyrmkin doting on her every whim. (Many dragons have no patience for the creatures and either devour their own unfertilized eggs, wait for the wyrmkin to hatch and then devour them, or leave the eggs somewhere far from their lair to pester other people.)
When a mommy-dragon does not want a daddy-dragon...
The vast majority of wyrmkin are 'free-range,' the product of a long line of mommy wyrmkin and daddy wyrmkin, abandoned many generations ago by some annoyed dragoness, and only dream of being the servants of a dragon-mommy...
Please, someone else say they can see these little guys in Advent Children!!
I know that WotC did it initially. But Paizo should have corrected it.
So you want invisible fey creatures?
The AD&D Monstrous Compendium says that kobolds have scaly hides, non-prehensile rat-like tails and 2 small horns. The picture makes them look kind of Gollum-like.
I still don't like what happened to the umber hulk in 3E. For me it will always be the Easley on the cover of the AD&D 2E Monstrous Compendium, but somehow it became a bug man in 3E.
I've always rather liked this image for kobolds
http://magiccards.info/lg/en/226.html.
Depiction-wise, I was never all that thrilled with the horned dog-men of first edition, and was even less thrilled when they became pygmy dragonmen.
I liked the kobolds of the Compleat Enchanter series, where they're in the mines working metal and such, but not acting like the current stereotypical bearded dwarves.
...A female dragon can lay a clutch of eggs every year, and if she eschews the company of males of her species, can have quite the little collection of wyrmkin doting on her every whim. (Many dragons have no patience for the creatures and either devour their own unfertilized eggs, wait for the wyrmkin to hatch and then devour them, or leave the eggs somewhere far from their lair to pester other people.)...
Unfertilized eggs don't hatch, they're laid as a part of something vaguely similar to a mammal's menstrual cycles.
Though if some magical strangeness is hatching kobolds from the unfertilized eggs, I wonder what would happen if the same thing happened to chicken eggs. Mini-kobolds? Maybe the fur-bearing kobolds come from owlbear eggs?
Kobolds were subterranean miners in European folklore, more akin to the dwarves of modern fantasy tropes. Like "tommyknockers", the tap-tap-tap of their little picks spooked many an old German miner in the darkness under the Alps.
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Unfertilized eggs don't hatch, they're laid as a part of something vaguely similar to a mammal's menstrual cycles.
Though if some magical strangeness is hatching kobolds from the unfertilized eggs, I wonder what would happen if the same thing happened to chicken eggs. Mini-kobolds? Maybe the fur-bearing kobolds come from owlbear eggs?
Actually, it depends on the species. Some kinds of insects like ants and bees (I think) do lay unfertilized eggs that hatch. The fertilized ones are female (Queen), and the unfertilized ones are male (Workers, and the socalled ''males'' are the ones that mate with the queen).
Reproduction is not the same in all species.
For humans the male carries the x and the y chromosomes, while the female carries x and x. This means that an unfertilized egg-cell contains one x chromosome while a spermcell contains one x chromosome or one y chromosome. After conception the embryo will contain either 2 x chromosomes (A girl) or an x and a y chromosome (A boy). However the exact opposite is true for birds! (Yes, this is evolutionary impossible, seeing as mammals supposedly should have evolved from birds)
For those insects it's even weirder. The males are haploid (Having only one set of chromosomes), while the females are diploid (Having two sets of chromosomes)
Actually, it depends on the species....Reproduction is not the same in all species...For those insects it's even weirder...
Right, I'm thinking more like reptiles or birds. I'm no biology expert, but we have a lot of chickens. Insects are strange too, though and it goes to show that all sorts of reproduction can be 'realistic' in a fantasy or sci fi setting. It's just that misinformation about chickens and eggs leads to a lot of common misconceptions about how the process works including a lot of people who think roosters mount the eggs themselves. It's fine to assume a magical creature does something completely different, but if someone wants to think of it like how a chicken does it, the unfertilized eggs are unfertilized.
The ideas I could see working better with insect-style dragons specifically, but in that case, like you were saying, dragons would probably all be 'female' with the wyrmkin being all 'male.'
The Suikoden Kobold. The Playstation games, if you didn't know.
Totally derailing this, but just wanted to say YAY for someone referencing Suikoden.
Mind, I don't equate Suikoden kobolds with D&D/Pathfinder's, and I am fine with D&D being reptilian as they have been for awhile (though I like to pull things from folklore and in my world they do like to mine and such, though they also tend more to do things like raid other peoples' mines instead, etc.).
But I'm just happy it was mentioned. I did stat up Sui-kobolds once... medium size, scent, with a dog-like loyalty trait.
However the exact opposite is true for birds! (Yes, this is evolutionary impossible, seeing as mammals supposedly should have evolved from birds)
Incorrect! Mammals and birds evolved from separate reptilian ancestors.
Kobolds were subterranean miners in European folklore, more akin to the dwarves of modern fantasy tropes. Like "tommyknockers", the tap-tap-tap of their little picks spooked many an old German miner in the darkness under the Alps.
From Dragon #96:
Kobolds
Also known as "diggers", "beardos", and, for the tapping sound
their mining tools make, "knockers" (as in, "That's an interesting
pair of knockers coming up the street"), kobolds have made their
greedy presences felt in many a hoard and treasury vault. Barely
topping 4' in height and resembling short, grubby Santa Clauses,
kobolds live in great underground caverns and tunnel systems, much
to the relief of the surface-dwelling races. They compete with rats
and goblins for living space in most city sewer systems. Kobolds
covet everything they see that might even be remotely valuable,
particularly if such items appear to be made of gold. Wise persons
will cover their mouths when speaking to kobolds, to avoid showing
their fillings.
Meepo Lives
*raises fist*
Kobolds were subterranean miners in European folklore, more akin to the dwarves of modern fantasy tropes. Like "tommyknockers", the tap-tap-tap of their little picks spooked many an old German miner in the darkness under the Alps.
That's one of three kinds of kobold. There's also the house kobold (Heinzelmännchen) and the ship kobold (Klabautermann)
They're invisible fey creatures that can take the form of human, animal, even fire or object.
From the dragonquest rpg from 1980. Friednly household chums!!
KOBOLD
Natural Habitat: Fields, Caverns.
Description: Kobolds are small, elderly-appearing Dwarvish types
who wear hoods of bright colors. They are about 2~/2 feet tall, and have
highly gnarled faces.
Talents, Skills, and Magic: Kobolds are very useful around the
house or farm, for they will perform many tasks relating to maintenance
of property or animals. They have no special magical powers, and they
are not as good at working with stone and at detecting unusual
constructions as the Dwarves. They can see in the dark.
.
Comments: A Kobold in the house is a blessing, for they will perform
all sorts of menial or semi-skilled tasks with great willingness and
ability, where such is possible. They will work for only shelter and
food. While travelling, they will most likely run away if they see a party
at a distance, but there is a 25% chance that they will be willing to trade information and befriend a character. In general, Kobolds get along with men better even than the Dwarves. Kobolds will almost never have
treasure, although if they do it will usually be something of value only
to them
Although ..from dangerous mine work..The word cobalt is derived from the German kobalt, from kobold meaning "goblin", a term used for the ore of cobalt by miners. The first attempts at smelting the cobalt ores to produce cobalt metal failed, yielding cobalt(II) oxide instead. Also, because the primary ores of cobalt always contain arsenic, smelting the ore oxidized into the highly toxic and volatile oxide As4O6, which was inhaled by workers.
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Erm, Kobolds are draconic humanoids since the beginning of 3ed. And frankly, after Meepo there is no turning back :)
Meepo became a major NPC in one of my campaigns. The sorcerer in the group took him under his wing and eventually Meepo became his cohort. He was involved in the endgame fight for the campaign and survived to become a kobold sorcerer of note. Sadly, his mentor did not since he was incinerated.
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The AD&D Monstrous Compendium says that kobolds have scaly hides, non-prehensile rat-like tails and 2 small horns. The picture makes them look kind of Gollum-like.
I still don't like what happened to the umber hulk in 3E. For me it will always be the Easley on the cover of the AD&D 2E Monstrous Compendium, but somehow it became a bug man in 3E.
The art has always been kind of crappy in the old Monster Manuals, especially 2nd Ed.