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KC, if you want the Kobolds to have hips, just say so...
I'm quite fond of this Aphorite Kobold who looks a little more dignified than usual; slap some clothes on them and they're not any stranger in War for the Crown than a halfling, IMO. Likewise, the Mbe'ke Kobold from the Mwangi book (presumably a member of a local Fellowship, Cloudspire's combinations of extended families and trade unions) feels more like a 'person.'
There's a lot of room for them to be more than just critters.
I! WANT! THEM! TO! HAVE! HIPS!
The mention gnomes too. I don’t really get that one. I understand kobolds and dwarves both being subterranean races competing for the same underground resources. Maybe deep gnomes too. But surface gnomes? I don’t know how often they would come across each other.You know how in D&D the elf and orc deities are at odds? Apply this to Garl Glittergold and Kurtulmak, and you have the gnome/kobold rivalry I'm talked about. If the elf/orc or even the dwarf/giant rivalries made it to Pathfinder, pretty sure that the gnome/kobold one followed not far behind. Maybe that changed, I dunno... but here's the kicker: any kobold of any alignment threw their morality out of the window when they see a gnome, as if it triggered a bloodthirsty rage of some kind.
Yes, your gold or silver-scaled kobold LG champion/paladin would backstab its NG gnome companion out of ancestral hate.
Point is, kobolds already have a lot of lore that could have been nice to explore in Pathfindr 2E as a core race, especially related to dragons, which fans have been asking for years, instead of getting probably the most obnoxious and annoying race/creature D&D has ever spawned...
Oh, also, this is absolutely not true and never was. I was a huge 3.5 kobolds fan, and as far as I can personally recall, there was never any "even good kobolds try to murder gnomes" lore. Kobolds were commanded by Kurtulmak to kill gnomes as part of an extremely disproportionate grudge fueled by Garl Glittergold admittedly being a complete dipsugar. A "LG kobold paladin" wouldn't even be able to follow Kurtulmak, much less want to murder her companion out of "ancestral hate". It was a rather one-sided religious war.
It was also extremely Greyhawk-centric. There's no God of Gnomes or God of Kobolds anymore, which is why it's toned back a lot in Pathfinder. I'm pretty sure Pathfinder mainly focuses on a svirfneblin/kobold rivalry--that is, when they bother to focus on boring excuses for obnoxious interparty conflict at all.
boring excuses for obnoxious interparty conflict
but enough about playable goblins
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Kobolds deserve to have hips!
Also I think it is perfectly valid to like the old designs. We go back and forth between liking the classic/furry design or the new designs. What you described is perfectly valid critiques!! Respectful disagreement is good.
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Honestly, there's never been a really, truly good canon design for the purposes of PC ancestry. They all had their flaws. I think Zobeck's/3.5's kobolds were the best by a mile, but, well, I take some liberties even when I'm trying to follow those.
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Honestly, there's never been a really good canon design. I think Zobeck's/3.5's kobolds were the best by a mile, but, well, I take some liberties even when I'm trying to follow those.
Absolutely adorable!
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Thank you! Her name is Brine and she was just the tragickest little mess.
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I'm personally glad that not every ancestry is conventionally attractive by real-world standards. That's how we end up with the D&D art community where 90% of fanart is sexy tieflings.
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Who doesn't like sexy tieflings? To each their own. :)
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A lot of the Tiefling hate you see online happens to disproportionately land on younger-on-average queer fans who are just having fun with the most customizable option in their PHB. Not saying that's what Will is getting at here, of course, but I don't get what's supposed to be so frustrating about other people making characters you personally wouldn't.
I happen to think one of our anvil-headed friends could be quite fetching, given flattering enough lighting and good table manners. I have high hopes to see Kobolds in Tian cities someday.
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Here's how I'll put it: Some people like playing cool badasses who kick butt and take names. Some people like playing hot girls. Both groups ought to have access to the table, but the former has a much easier time of it with the existing ancestries, and I think that's a tiny bit of a shame.
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Here's how I'll put it: Some people like playing cool badasses who kick butt and take names. Some people like playing hot girls. Both groups ought to have access to the table, but the former has a much easier time of it with the existing ancestries, and I think that's a tiny bit of a shame.
Challenge accepted. Gimme some "ugly Ancestries" and I'll make a party of badass hot girls for my thread.
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Considering how subjective beauty can be, I'm not going to frame this as a challenge (it's not gonna prove anything), but if you want to do a goblin/kobold/hobgoblin/shoony party, sure, go for it!
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A lot of the Tiefling hate you see online happens to disproportionately land on younger-on-average queer fans who are just having fun with the most customizable option in their PHB. Not saying that's what Will is getting at here, of course, but I don't get what's supposed to be so frustrating about other people making characters you personally wouldn't.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm all for people getting to express themselves however they want! And tieflings were probably a bad example, they're more a result of the community taking a liking to them rather than a byproduct of the D&D art. More of what I'm getting at is like... when every NPC of a non-human ancestry looks conventionally hot, it breaks my immersion a bit.
But this is not a hill I want to die on either - if people want for some kobolds to be sexy, who am I to stop them!
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My kobolds have one hip that does not lie, and one hip that does not tell the truth.
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I think the measure of "conventionally hot" looks very different if you base it on the standards of cis straight allosexuals. I don't want that, but I do like expressive bodies and faces. Kobolds don't need to have boobs as long as they have the potential for big eyes and cute poses.
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So, I have to be a little critical here and risk committing sacrilege. Having had the last year to mull it over, I've decided I'm not a huge fan of the new kobold designs.
I do love their new stats, and I think the designs are beautifully drawn and quite creative. For better or for worse, it is kind of the goblins all over again. When the new goblin content was released, it was a distinctive and eye-catching rework meant mainly to liven up a stale monster premise. It gave the ancestry a much clearer visual identity, but limited PC options in the process. Many goblin-loving players chose to simply ignore it altogether when they made their PCs.
The new kobold design revitalized a (debateably) tired monster design, and the new attention has likewise revitalized interest in the ancestry. Sort of. See, people have been begging Paizo to focus more on kobolds for years, so it's more like PF2 finally deigned to acknowledge that kobolds are one of the most popular "evil" ancestries ever designed, and the community is accordingly quite pleased. I think we would have reacted the exact same way if kobolds had gotten this attention while going back to the old 3.5 designs.
I personally think that serious ancestry designs should always focus on being versatile for different playstyles and character concepts. No ancestry should limit itself to any one tone--that's how you get short-lived gag PCs. It's a point of disappointment for me that hobgoblins, goblins and kobolds look so hyper-realistically gimmicky that certain character archetypes simply don't work with them without stumbling. A goblin romantic heroine is a lot more buyable when goblins are just short green-skinned people with pointy teeth and huge ears--less so when they're grotesque pickle-obsessed gremlins.
Of course, you can still play a sexy kobold femme fatale with the current shark-headed designs. Some will tell me I'm basic for feeling weird about it. That said, there's a lot more heavy lifting involved when it comes to the...
Hey I like my xenofiction designs and I dislike idea that trpgs need to have all fantasy creatures be as generic as possible to fulfill all possible iterations of creature :p Let paizo goblins be more different from other goblins x'D
(sidenote, I think Kingmaker 2e art is the one that has so far best nailed down 2e kobold design. I think key part to 2e kobold art is actually having neck) Though 2e kobold design didn't prevent artist giving one of kobold pregens in trouble in little absalom hips. Frankly, artists will always find the way
Note that I am fan of horrifying mutant tieflings.
<_< I am bit too prude to comment on the other thing though, but I think I can comment this much: when it comes to "attractive art"(and I'm not just talking about "sexy" art, the cute or cool or badass or etc fall in same category) I think there is bit too much tendency of that kind of art to always fall in same mold. Like, even if it doesn't break the anatomy, the artists have mainstream and niches as well, so when mainstream for cute expressive art is always the same, people start to think alternates are impossible.
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There's an important balance to strike between generic and gimmicky, but it is a balance designers learn to strike. You can see it on full display with anadi, for example--shapeshifting spider people are super weird and super cool as a concept, but they're also very flexible and able to fit a lot of concepts. You can imagine a brutish anadi barbarian, a flirty anadi bard, and a goofy anadi illusionist with equal ease. An ancestry based on, say, otyughs would be a lot less versatile, and would not work well as a main ancestry.
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tl;dr kobolds would be better if they were designed the way furries draw them send tweet
This is a bold and controversial statement and honestly it's opened my eye--namely to how/where that one player in a friend's group keeps finding really good kobold art. As somebody who is passingly fond of both the 'old' and 'new' kobold designs, I have to say furries do a really good job at taking a monstrous design and expressing unique character identities here.
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Hey! I like gimmicks xD
tl;dr kobolds would be better if they were designed the way furries draw them send tweetThis is a bold and controversial statement and honestly it's opened my eye--namely to how/where that one player in a friend's group keeps finding really good kobold art. As somebody who is passingly fond of both the 'old' and 'new' kobold designs, I have to say furries do a really good job at taking a monstrous design and expressing unique character identities here.
I mean, that is mostly because of the name itself: they are fans of such designs so of course they know how to make them appealing.
Here is generalized statement I dislike to make but don't know how to word better: there are roughly two types of furry art. The ones inspired and iterating on mainstream designs that created furries in first place and art that appeals to only people already in fandom.
It accidentally falls to that mainstream vs niche comparison I made before, earlier is basically mainstream art that is popular with furries as well while latter is popular only among furries.(and even then probably only certain niches)
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Point is, kobolds already have a lot of lore that could have been nice to explore in Pathfindr 2E as a core race, especially related to dragons, which fans have been asking for years, instead of getting probably the most obnoxious and annoying race/creature D&D has ever spawned...You must have some solid data on the fact that dragonborn fans outnumbered goblin fans, care to share?
I don't have numerical data, I only have statements.
- They reworked the Half-Dragon template so the breath weapon would only take in account "racial HD", barring 0-HD races to gain one. That's the ONLY template in the entire P1E to have such a restriction. Their reason was to avoid people overrusing them like it was back in D&D 3.5.- Many half-breed templates received associated races with support, EXCEPT the Half-Dragon.
* Aasimar for Half-Celestial
* Tiefling for Half-Fiend
* Geninekin for Half-Elemental (D&D)
* Other planetouched races
* Dhampir for Vampire
* Wyrwood for Half-Golem (close; D&D)
* Skinwalker for Lycanthrope
* Vine Leshy and Ghoran for plant-based templates
- They had the Kobolds and Wyvarans... and they barely did anything with them. They could have offered a stronger Medium variation of Kobolds, or an alternate trait with variant ability scores similar to the Halflings. They made the Wyvarans a Dragon-type race... instead of a Humanoid (Reptilian, Kobold) one, just to avoid using them that often.
- Dragons were rarer in Pathfinder, so any related race would be as well.
- WotC and Paizo often match each other's rules when it comes to races and classes, so if WotC added the Dragonborn without causing controversy, Paizo wouldn't have suffered that with their own.
- P2E... still doesn't have a Draconic Versatile Heritage.
It was also extremely Greyhawk-centric. There's no God of Gnomes or God of Kobolds anymore, which is why it's toned back a lot in Pathfinder. I'm pretty sure Pathfinder mainly focuses on a svirfneblin/kobold rivalry--that is, when they bother to focus on boring excuses for obnoxious interparty conflict at all.
Like I said, "Maybe it changed"... Good for them if they reworked that lore.
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That is not how those came to be.- Many half-breed templates received associated races with support, EXCEPT the Half-Dragon.
* Aasimar for Half-Celestial
* Tiefling for Half-Fiend
* Geninekin for Half-Elemental (D&D)
* Other planetouched races
* Dhampir for Vampire
* Wyrwood for Half-Golem (close; D&D)
* Skinwalker for Lycanthrope
* Vine Leshy and Ghoran for plant-based templates
WotC and Paizo often match each other's rules when it comes to races and classes, so if WotC added the Dragonborn without causing controversy, Paizo wouldn't have suffered that with their own.Paizo didn't make a Dragonborn specifically because WotC did, it's iconically something of theirs's, just like Beholders and Mind Flayers.
Like I said, "Maybe it changed"... Good for them if they reworked that lore.
You completely ignore the entire post to try and make yourself correct? Seriously? It never "changed" or got "reworked" because it was never true to begin with.
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I’m going to need a lot of convincing to believe Wyrwoods have anything to do with Half-Golems.
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- P2E... still doesn't have a Draconic Versatile Heritage.
While this is technically correct it's only correct in the sense of first-party materials. Battlezoo's dragon ancestry supplement does include a Draconic Scion versatile heritage that seems to fill the "half-dragon" niche. While it IS third-party, AND does need to be setting-neutral as there's a second version of the supplement written for 5e D&D, Mark Seifter's ties to Paizo are so strong that it's practically second-party material.
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Just chiming in to say I've had pretty good results treating the new kobold design in a serious fashion. Their backwards-facing horns are excellent for fashion- hang gold chains between them, tie ribbons to them, or even affix something to them. They can't really do big-eyed cuteness, but I do think a bit of creativity with their design can take you pretty far.
One nice thing is that I really don't think anyone would take issue with someone showing up with one of the old kobold designs if that's what the player likes.
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I don't have numerical data, I only have statements.Point is, kobolds already have a lot of lore that could have been nice to explore in Pathfindr 2E as a core race, especially related to dragons, which fans have been asking for years, instead of getting probably the most obnoxious and annoying race/creature D&D has ever spawned...You must have some solid data on the fact that dragonborn fans outnumbered goblin fans, care to share?
...but none of the statements you provided actually supported the assertion you were asked about. Do you have any support for the assertion that dragonborn fans outnumbered goblin fans? From what I can understand of it, the goblin thing was a direct result of a wave of goblin fan interest, and I've seen lots of goblin interest elsewhere in the culture. Heck, it's not even limited to RPGs and board games and fantasy novels. Goblincore is a thing. By contrast, I've only ever seen dragonborn fans inside of D&D itself, and they weren't really a big deal even there until 4th ed, when they got turned into a core race and sort of became a big deal by default.
All of that said... chill, maybe? I mean, kobolds are percolating along, coming closer and closer to the mainstream. Getting bitter that the goblins got there first is... I'm really not sure how it's supposed to benefit you. Rather than pickling yourself in resentment that it hasn't happened faster, I'd suggest tossing out ideas and aspirations. We've seen a lot of pro-kobold stuff in this thread that didn't have to go dumping on the goblins to get there. You could add to that. There's been interest expressed in having a medium kobold-equivalent. You could add to that. Maybe throw in some suggestions about interesting flavor explanations? Perhaps suggestions about names? (Avoid "half-dragon", "draconian", and "dragonborn". They're all going to be more trouble than they're worth.) Right now, one of the big things that's holding back more draconic representation is, apparently, copyright issues... so if you want more draconic representation, one of the best things you can do to get there is to come up with new and more interesting ideas that *aren't* what WotC is doing or has done.
Hmmm...
That actually seems like a decent other thread.
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Paizo didn't make a Dragonborn specifically because WotC did, it's iconically something of theirs's, just like Beholders and Mind Flayers.
If Paizo was just going to steal people from WotC, there are a lot of player options I would prefer to see before Dragonborns- Goliaths, Thri-Keen, Minotaurs, a lot of the animal people, etc.
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I don't disagree, but honestly, I think that's a problem regardless of how ancestries are designed. It's why there's less hobgoblin art than tiefling art. Artists draw what's fun to draw a lot of the time, and while I absolutely think there should be more fantasy art of non-conventionally attractive people, not to mention of people who are fat, nonwhite, older than 25 and so on, that's an extremely thorny issue of its own with its own tangled factors to unravel.
Artists also draw what gives them more options, of course, which is why expressiveness is important.
I’m going to need a lot of convincing to believe Wyrwoods have anything to do with Half-Golems.
They're literally warforged. Like, with less cool* extremely different lore, but like, aesthetically, that's obviously what wyrwoods are an allusion to.
*This is 100% a joke, they're both so flavorfully distinct and cool I'd want both in my setting.
If Paizo was just going to steal people from WotC, there are a lot of player options I would prefer to see before Dragonborns- Goliaths, Thri-Keen, Minotaurs, a lot of the animal people, etc.
And outside ancestries, let's throw in meenlocks and the entirety of the Age of Worms Adventure Path.
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I would rather not see all ancestries go the big eye route personally as far as default art for the game. It kinda gives me creepy vibes about Eurocentric beauty standards that I don’t think are necessary. I would much rather see ancestries that continue to open up the possibility of emotional expression in new and interesting ways.
Salman Rushdie’s protagonist in the novel Midnight’s Children is telling his story to a woman who is capturing the essence of the story and transcribing it into the flavor of pickles. When goblins became picklers and antagonistic to writing, I immediately was drawn to an awesome new take on fantastical ways of knowing and sharing information, emotions, and experiences. I think it was an absolutely wonderful move.
I am sure we will continue to get lots of ancestries that lean more heavily into European traditions of Humanizing the previously “other.” I think this is fine and wonderful. But I love the inclusion of ancestries like the Conrasu that enable alternative fantasies of being, and encourage players to think about experiencing a fantastical world beyond the human experience.
Do kobolds need to be one way or the other? I don’t know if my opinion matters all that much. But I think a lot of the art of them in PF2 does express a range of emotions and I hope the creative team keeps trying to push the art direction towards using fashion, food, art, dance, music, etc as ways for lots of different cultural expressions for existing ancestries. They have been on an excellent streak of it and I look forward to seeing it continue.
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I don't strongly disagree with any of that, though I'm not sure the "big eyes" thing is so much European as it is simply not as universal as Europeans tend to assume. It's definitely not exclusive to Europeans, considering the culture most famous for popularizing the look. :P
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There's been interest expressed in having a medium kobold-equivalent. You could add to that. Maybe throw in some suggestions about interesting flavor explanations? Perhaps suggestions about names? (Avoid "half-dragon", "draconian", and "dragonborn". They're all going to be more trouble than they're worth.)
dire kobold boom solved it
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I mean, lot of more obscure starfinder species have surprising large amount of fan art to them.
Meanwhile pathfinder hobgoblins never got much of fanart, not even 1e ones that basically looked like grey orcs.
I'm just saying, I'm not sure its really about "artists drawing what gives them more options", artists draw whatever they like drawing and if they like drawing cute things, they will make thing they like to draw cuter.
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I'm not sure I'd say PF2 goblins or kobolds particularly hew to eurocentric standards of beauty in their design.
But I do think Paizo maybe is leaning too hard into a niche with small races. Goblins were stubby with oversized heads and then kobolds are stubby with big heads and even Lini's PF2 art kind of leans into this a little bit.
Ship's already sailed, but it is something I've seen come up. I know people here generally like them a lot but in other places on the internet I've checked, PF2 kobolds have been incredibly controversial.
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Sci-Fi's a whole other can of worms. You can get really weird there because everybody's weird there. It's expected, and it's a conceit of the genre. That said, I do think there's just a practical benefit to having ancestries with clearly-conveyed emotions. As cool as conrasu are, I don't see a lot of people playing them in fully-fledged campaigns, and the ones I hear about getting played tend to lean hard into the visual flare of the ancestry, because, well, it's a flare that takes up a lot of space.
Not that conrasu aren't super cool, and not that you can't make really cool PCs with them! I think they're simply a less versatile ancestry than, say, humans or halflings or gnolls.
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Also artists really like getting paid to make art, so the work that gets actively commissioned will be the art that gets published, which will be the art that inspires the new art that follows it. The Mwangi Expanse book completely revitalized the whole world of Golarion for me and I am very excited about the Impossible lands book as well. I hope we continue to get to see how interesting and varied the continents of Golarion are and I really hope we get lots more variation on the existing ancestries in them and not just new ancestries.
If we can have nations of Vikings that are obsessed with dragons and other nations who owe their continued existence to making deals with devils I hope there is room for all of that with Kobolds and Goblins and halflings and elves too.
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I do think that the whole "creatures being drawn different" thing would be less of an issue if Pathfinder had a less unified pseudo-realistic art style. Again, whole other age of worms, but it's related. I'd love to see a mix of anime, hyperrealism, sketch, and so on. Especially since Pathfinder has sort of moved a tiny bit away from its "gritty, edgy, ogre incest ribcage hat families" roots these days.
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...that most of the art is just sexy tiefling and all the other races/ancestries and looks fall to the wayside...
Surely it is nothing less than the Devil's work; intended to tempt us fallible mortals away from grace and towards our forever-doom.
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Oh, this is harkening back to an earlier topic, but I think devil-worshiping kobolds might have worked better in a setting less reliant on objective "if you worship someone, you have to mostly like them" rules. If we had more, like, clerics paying homage to Rovagug as an enemy to respect and appease, well-intentioned but evil priests of Sarenrae, demon-worshipers who celebrated the freedom and joy of demonic chaos while rejecting the cruelty, that sort of thing. Instead, demon-worshiping Bekyar were basically pure evil in PF1, Cheliax was a tyrannical slave-owning bureaucracy, etc. There wasn't much room for, "We worship this thing because you can find things to love and cherish even in the dangerous and foul." Gods were too human, and evil was too simplistic, for that kind of forgiveness.
PF2 Golarion feels a little better about it, but it just doesn't feel like the right setting for fiend-worship to be especially interesting. I've never been huge on Cheliax, though.
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Sci-Fi's a whole other can of worms. You can get really weird there because everybody's weird there. It's expected, and it's a conceit of the genre. That said, I do think there's just a practical benefit to having ancestries with clearly-conveyed emotions. As cool as conrasu are, I don't see a lot of people playing them in fully-fledged campaigns, and the ones I hear about getting played tend to lean hard into the visual flare of the ancestry, because, well, it's a flare that takes up a lot of space.
Not that conrasu aren't super cool, and not that you can't make really cool PCs with them! I think they're simply a less versatile ancestry than, say, humans or halflings or gnolls.
Challenge accepted :D
Sidenote, I still miss early pathfinder art(last seen around... Was it jade regent or serpent's skull?) animeish art by the overwatch artist guy :'D
Another editing sidenote: Reminds me of what I immediately started to do when I did the homebrew setting plans with homebrewed alignment system, because suddenly fiend worship wasn't inherently evil :'D
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No, I'm not challenging anyone, I fully recognize that it's possible with some extra work to... oh, what am I saying? I don't want to talk myself out of seeing some cool conrasu characters. I love conrasu and love seeing new OCs!
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I'm not sure I'd say PF2 goblins or kobolds particularly hew to eurocentric standards of beauty in their design.
But I do think Paizo maybe is leaning too hard into a niche with small races. Goblins were stubby with oversized heads and then kobolds are stubby with big heads and even Lini's PF2 art kind of leans into this a little bit.
Ship's already sailed, but it is something I've seen come up. I know people here generally like them a lot but in other places on the internet I've checked, PF2 kobolds have been incredibly controversial.
Surely Kashrishis, the small Ancestry we're about to get who are all built like cinderblocks, alleviates this worry some?
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Oh, this is harkening back to an earlier topic, but I think devil-worshiping kobolds might have worked better in a setting less reliant on objective "if you worship someone, you have to mostly like them" rules. If we had more, like, clerics paying homage to Rovagug as an enemy to respect and appease, well-intentioned but evil priests of Sarenrae, demon-worshipers who celebrated the freedom and joy of demonic chaos while rejecting the cruelty, that sort of thing. Instead, demon-worshiping Bekyar were basically pure evil in PF1, Cheliax was a tyrannical slave-owning bureaucracy, etc. There wasn't much room for, "We worship this thing because you can find things to love and cherish even in the dangerous and foul." Gods were too human, and evil was too simplistic, for that kind of forgiveness.
PF2 Golarion feels a little better about it, but it just doesn't feel like the right setting for fiend-worship to be especially interesting. I've never been huge on Cheliax, though.
I don't think anyone was saying that infernalist Kobolds shouldn't be Evil. The bunch in Kingmaker start off that way, though the text says they can eventually be convinced to find a less nasty divine patron.
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I don't think that's exactly what I meant. I think pure-evil devil and demon worship tends to come out a little boring in Pathfinder, is all, and wouldn't be my favorite direction for kobolds. Kobolds should be generally evil (I especially think the "metallic kobolds good, chromatic kobolds bad" take is sort of lame, but that's partially just me not liking metallic kobolds' design), but their evil has always been the most complex of the monstrous ancestries, cruel to others but pleasant and cooperative to one another.
For the record, I'm mostly continuing to offer slightly contrary takes because I really like talking about kobolds and I think it's fun to unpack and analyze stuff about them. I don't want to come across as being contrary because I want to argue, and I don't want to frustrate anyone with these takes.
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I tend to look at things from an evolutionary/sociology perspective.
Kobolds had a competitive advantage in underground complexes sized for small races. This led to a lot of conflict with other underground races, good and bad. I can totally see earlier dwarven civilizations viewing them as nothing more than vermin to be exterminated. Being “monstrous”, few “good” deities had any interest in them.
So who do you turn to when you are being bullied? A bigger bully. Hence the fiend connection.
Times are changing though!
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I would be a little surprised if the more approachable deities rejected good-aligned creatures because they looked yucky, considering Desna is, like, an eldritch monstrosity and Pharasma is an eternal and universal being across the universe. I think kobolds are a great metaphor for how trauma and fear (they're a small-sized species that evolved in the Darklands) can make you bitter and mean and toxic yourself. Kobolds are insular, arrogant, paranoid, cowardly, spiteful and cruel, and they got that way because they're vulnerable and always have been and channeled it in an unhealthy way. Svirfneblin suffered similarly, but instead became grounded and a little jaded, cynical but still fundamentally kind, because they processed that fear and trauma differently.
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I actually have two conrasu concepts builded up in my freezer, one is cleric of Valmallos I plan to play in Strenght of Thousands who totally doesn't cheat in tests by calling axis to ask questions(that is just natural ability they have so its totally alright ;P) and second one was pathfinder society character since I found idea of rite of enforcement + taw launcher + way of vanguard gunslinger + 0 strength + assurance strength amusing. Funny thing is that I haven't developed either one visually nor personality wise much because I don't really like to develop my characters before I can actually start playing with them x'D (so might be nice motivation for developing them further now)
That and weirdly enough, while conrasu have cool visuals, I don't have specific interest in playing weirdly alien body in this case, I'm more interested in the whole perspective of being that are cosmic shards of the law. Main thing I would need to nail down the cleric's personality would be knowledge of what other backgrounds rest of players are interested in since I think sponsor options in strength of thousands are really important for motivation of character to be studying in Magaambya :3
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I think kobolds are a great metaphor for how trauma and fear (they're a small-sized species that evolved in the Darklands) can make you bitter and mean and toxic yourself. Kobolds are insular, arrogant, paranoid, cowardly, spiteful and cruel, and they got that way because they're vulnerable and always have been and channeled it in an unhealthy way.
I enthusiastically support this interpretation.
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Since there's very little difference between Small and Medium in terms of the rules anymore, I do think there might be a bit too many people who are generally smaller than humans and probably not enough people who are generally larger than humans.
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Likewise, the Mbe'ke Kobold from the Mwangi book (presumably a member of a local Fellowship, Cloudspire's combinations of extended families and trade unions) feels more like a 'person.'
I adore the Mbe'ke art and hope they do more of that style for the kobolds! As for the question of do goblins, kobolds and gnomes get along, well in our all-small patrol of Agents of Edgewatch, they most certainly did. I am really glad that the whole racial hatred thing has gone away in Pathfinder 2. It's more interesting to take people as they come.
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Oh that Mbe'ke Kobold art is gorgeous. Gosh Mwangi Expanse is such a good book.