Kobold

Kobolds are small, bipedal, human dragonkin. Their general alignment in systems which use such a system is lawful neutral.

Biology

Adult kobolds on average stand around 3-4 feet tall, possessing a tail that is on average as long as 1/4th their height, but can vary by an inch or two. They typically have five digits per limb, but it is not uncommon for a kobold to naturally lack the fifth digit on one or both hands or feet, with as many as 1 in 30 kobolds missing at least one digit compared to the norm, depending on the population. They have articulate hands with opposable thumbs and their digits end in dark coloured claws made mostly of keratin. Their claws can naturally regrow to some extent and are honed and shaped by kobolds using files or rocks and trees if they do not possess one. If a kobold's claw is completely loss due to breaking off at the bone then it will not naturally regrow and will typically cause a partial loss of feeling in that digit. However, the shape of kobold claws is such that prevents kobolds from making a completely closed fist or grasping thin objects such as pens, needles, thread, etc, which makes tool use more difficult compared to other humanoids and even other dragonkin, so some cultures of kobold will intentionally break the hand-claws of young kobolds in such a way that they do not regrow in order to compensate for this natural weakness.

An adult kobold's snout tends to extend between one and two handspans measured from wrist to claw-tip or on average between 4-9 inches from the ocular cavity. They possess solid, articulate tongues capable of speech. They typically have an overbite possess 28 teeth, but some individuals may have as many as 36 teeth and some kobolds may have an underbite. Kobolds with an underbite tend to have serious difficulty with speaking and eating. Their teeth are divided into 4 pointed incisors roughly 5mm on average, 2 sharp canines roughly 1-1.5cm long, 2 pointed premolars, 3 grinding molars, and two large bone breaking teeth. Kobold's bite strength is strong enough to break smaller bones if they are able to bite down with the backs of their jaw. Their teeth do not naturally regrow once lost.

Kobold have a complex range of sensory organs, most of which are common in structure and function to all humanoids. The noteable differences are as follows: They possess boned frills which extend from the side of the head and unlike visually similar structures in other dragonkin these are flexible able to be spread or collapsed against the head. The thin bones grow longer with a kobold's age until reaching a maximum size at adulthood and are not filled with marrow but rather are hollow and act both as bone conduction to the inner ear as well as struts for the frills. These frills serve as sensory organs and can be articulated for more fine tuned hearing and are pressure sensitive allowing a kobold to tell some factors of their altitude. Kobolds also possess fluid and blood filled organs at both the tips of their snouts and behind their ears which allow them to sense magnetic fields and orient their direction correctly to a reference point - usually the planet's magnetic poles - with no other external stimuli. Kobolds have a moderately improved sense of smell compared to the humanoid average and are able to detect some kinds of poisonous gasses which are odourless to most humanoids, but their sense of smell is not to the extent that they can engage in scent-tracking or recognize individuals on basis of natural odour alone. Their eyes are larger than the humanoid average and can dilate to a greater degree allowing them non-magical darkvision. They also possess whiskers as do most dragonkin, but these are not generally prominent and serve diminished function compared to those found in many lesser dragon species.

Kobolds are ovoviviparous as opposed to dragonborn who are naturally viviparous and dragons and lesser dragons who are naturally ovoparous. Unlike dragonborn and dragons, kobolds are not breeding compatible with humans, elves, etc. However, kobolds have asymmetrical compatibility with lesser dragons, with male kobolds being able to fertilize female lesser dragons. ( This is in contrast to most humanoids which do not have such a compatibility with lesser dragons. Dragons have their own magic assisted compatibility with all humanoids, not counting their shapeshifting. ) The kobold's gestational cycle takes approximately six months, after which an infant kobold is completely helpless for a year. By five years, a kobold is able to speak, run, and feed itself. Kobolds on average begin adolescence at 10 and reach sexual maturity between 12 and 14 years old, but typically do not reach full adulthood until 16. When adjusted for infant mortality, kobolds live around 60 years on average, with the maximum known natural lifespan being in the 150s for particularly healthy kobolds. A kobold will only naturally birth one or two individuals at a time.

Kobolds are a sexually dimorphic species, but the dimorphism is far less pronounced than most humanoids and most dragonkin. Typically, males are on average two inches taller than females of their family, but are not significantly different in physical capability or overall build. Female kobolds are very slightly more slender and have less pronounced frills and whiskers. Female kobolds also tend to have smaller, but more durable claws. Adult male kobolds may also have a more prominent orbital ridge, but this tends to depend on the family. Kobolds can easily tell the sex of an individual kobold by scale growth patterns in a way that is not intuitive to humans. The live birth ratio is 3:1 males-to-female and the stillbirth ratio is roughly 5:1 males-to-females, which can lead to very skewed sex ratios in kobold communities depending on what other factors are in play. In the wild, the fact that males are three times more likely to be born is easily counteracted by the high male mortality kobolds tend to experience leading to a roughly 1:2 ratio of adult males-to-females, but some communities reach a 1:1 ratio and in particularly good environments with little natural competition, it's possible for the adult population to near the 3:1 males-to-females ratio expected from their birthrate. See #Sociology for the implications of this.

All kobolds regardless of gender have an intuitive understanding of simple mechanics, basic physics, arithmetic, geometry, and basic causality. More intelligent kobolds tending to be good logicians and mechanics and having a better understanding of trigonometry than even average dwarves. Kobolds are the second best triangulators for their size among humanoids, only beaten by gnomes and thus make excellent land surveyors and architects when given the education to do so. However, kobolds tend to have poor ability with general algebra, arcana, and are relatively naive and easily deceived for humanoids.

Unlike most humanoids, kobolds cannot naturally cry: a feature shared with all dragonkin except for dragonborn. This means that irritants in getting into their eyes can lead to blinding infections and that they have to rely on other methods of expressing emotional distress. Consequently, most kobolds close their eyes when burrowing and have an instinctive reflex to close their eyes when the wind blows or when they get water on their face.

Kobolds are the only dragonkin that are completely exothermic, requiring heat from their surrounding in order to maintain a healthy body temperature as opposed to be endotherms like dragonborn or having alternate means of maintaining internal body temperature. Kobolds become lethargic at temperatures above 40 degrees celsius and catatonic at temperatures below 5 degrees celsius. In this catatonic state kobold can endure hypothermia for roughly 12 hours without permanent injury by means of slowing their metabolism. This does not apply to magical cold damage or conditions that would cause frostbite in other humanoid species. A kobold going into and coming out of a hypothermic state will exhibit confusion, temporary memory loss, lowered inhibition, and more childlike behaviour. A kobold who has the means to do so will attempt to build a fire and lay in it for as long as they can tolerate rather than entering a state of hypothermia and kobolds are often found in places where natural geothermic energy keeps things comfortably warm or where an artificial source of heat is available. Most servile and slave kobolds tend to sleep near or sometimes within the master's furnace, oven, or hearth. Free kobolds build their sleeping chambers around whatever source of heat with intentional design instead. But it is important to note that while kobolds have resistance to fire damage and heat, they will still die if they get too hot.

Ecology

Kobolds are omnivores capable of eating terrestrial and aquatic animals and various plants for sustenance. They tend to play the role of scavengers when in the wilderness with no other humanoids around, but can be the apex predator of some environments. Kobolds prefer a protein rich diet with a small amount of natural sugars. They are also largely unaffected by the irritant properties of capsaicin and will happily eat peppers whole whenever they find them. Some kobold communities intentionally cultivate peppers and make extremely spicy sauces to marinate their meat in to ward off scavengers and thieves, but naturally some humans simply view that as a challenge and have begun cultivating peppers also. A favoured food of kobolds in most regions of Kalom is a rabbit mincemeat pie spiced with garlic and peppers and deep fried in lard, butter, or fish oil depending on what's available to them. Kobolds do not willingly consume seed oils but can be tricked into it and suffer only mild gastrointestinal distress from it.

Economy

Kobolds typically engage in barter systems and do not distinguish between free or servile when trading amongst themselves, but do distinguish a chattel slave and will not trade with them knowingly. When free and especially when thriving independently, they will engage in currency-based trade. They produce limited amounts of finished goods, usually importing these and exporting raw goods, but there are exceptions. They are typically not employed in high status or high paying jobs by other species and are frequently kept in servility or slavery, but some wizards and minor nobility will employ a kobold freely in greater pursuits. Free kobolds do not cultivate grains, but will trade for milled flour. Kobold agriculture, when it exists, mostly consists of planting root vegetables ( especially onions and garlic ), peppers, and edible grasses and herbs. Kobolds sometimes raise squirrels and rabbits if they live in areas amenable to it, but typically get their meat by trapping, hunting, or fishing instead.

Sociology

Kobolds are a eusocial species, capable of speech, have societal gender norms based on the community they are part of and the culture and environment it's found within. Kobolds almost never wear trousers or pants, preferring long tunics, split-tail coats, or a tunic and kilt combination depending on the culture and individual preference. Kobolds prefer to trade or beg for plant-based human-made clothing of the highest quality they can afford and have a sense of modesty, though what qualifies as modesty varies widely between cultures. At the minimum, adults wear a loin cloth or apron made of fur or fabric, but this is not necessarily expected of kobold children. Kobolds prefer to bathe socially rather than individually and especially are fond of natural hotsprings, protecting them whenever they can. These communal bathing times are fiercely guarded whenever possible, with armed kobold guards surrounding the bath and rotating out with kobolds who have finished bathing such that the bath is never unguarded until every kobold has had the chance to bathe. These baths are not only for hygiene and grooming purposes, but an important part of kobold socialization and interpersonal bonding for all ages.

Kobolds typically engage in a monogamous breeding strategy, but they are not obligate monogamists unless they adhere to a religion that mandates it. Kobolds are more likely to be polygynous when they are not monogamist and this is especially true for kobolds communities in slavery or subject to war or other causes of high male mortality. But is not unheard of for kobolds to engage in polyandry in communities where seniority is mostly held by female kobolds or when male mortality is low. In either case of polyandry or polygyny, offspring are raised in common amongst the group or by the extended family of the offspring, but not by the collective as a whole. Socially, parental investment by kobolds is high for both male and females, but they also have an unusually high rate of infanticide for a humanoid species, being the third highest behind humans and goblins. This is typically done out of competition between mates of the same individual and is least common in thriving communities with a gender ratio nearing parity. Still, to mitigate this, the common custom of all kobolds engaged in polygamy who can decide for themselves is to allocate "shifts" of breeding and assign them in turn or by lot. This, for example, leads to situations such as a male kobold with four female mates having one child every season or a female kobold with four male mates having a child with a different one of the four every year.

Kobolds' natural hierarchy is based on simple seniority or primogeniture within family units. They tend to form loose confederacies between multiple families into bands sharing a common dialect, but these are not tribes or nations strictly speaking as common ancestry is irrelevant and these confederacies can be renegotiated at any time. These confederacies are typically run by means of simple representative democracy where the elder of a given family - be it a male, a female, or a couple acting together - meet in informal councils and decide most matters by majority. However, it is also not unheard of for kobolds to settle some matters by trial by combat and in almost every case a kobold community will defer to the mandates of whatever other species or individual is dominating that community at the time. l

Kobolds have a universal aversion to eating their own kind and a general aversion to eating sapient species, but will opportunistically do the latter if they are facing food insecurity. ( As opposed to humans which will generally only do so when facing starvation or dwarves who typically opt to just starve to death, for examples. )

Kobolds typically revere greater dragons and seek them out. Metallic dragons tend to have a community of kobolds that they protect and feed in return for light servitude, whereas chromatic dragons tend to keep kobolds with a much heavier hand. In contrast, kobolds typically avoid lesser dragons whenever they can. Chromatic dragons - especially red and black dragons - are also known to magically experiment on their kobold slaves or engage in eugenics as a hobby. Female red dragons in particular are the worst offenders in this regard and will often cull kobolds that don't meet their aesthetic tastes with a typical pattern being to try and breed larger kobolds with vibrant red scales. Due to fickle, capricious, greedy, and narcissistic nature of red dragons, they also tend to oscillate between hoarding kobolds and forcing them to overreproduce and selling kobolds into slavery for more gold or killing 9 out of 10 of the females just to be manipulative and sadistic to the survivors. Kobolds from such communities tend to be extremely maladapted in several ways and are often avoided and shunned by kobolds from other communities. White dragons do not keep kobolds at all due to their solitary nature and the cold environment they typically live in being ill-suited for this and kobolds tend to have a long-standing aversion towards white dragons even in communities that have never seen one. This prejudice and other dragon-related prejudices can extend to other dragonkin such as dragonborn. ( Because the overwhelmingly most common scale colour for kobolds is red, orange, and brown range they tend to favour red dragonborn best and least associate them with their greater dragon counterparts in a form of familiarity bias. )