Kobold Hide: Small Reptilians Reskinned

Every race has to have a reason to exist in a fantasy world, and I know people who can't find a use for kobolds. They seem redundant to goblins, creepy little things that are easy to kill and aren't much of a challenge. Kobolds are dismissed as kind of pointless, and the fact that they're overlook and ignored is precisely why I felt the need to use them in my campaign, give them some dignity and respect, and if not make them cool at least redeem them.

In my campaign world of Desteon, kobolds serve dragons. Literally, in an Upstairs/Downstairs context. The color of the kobold matches the color of the dragon they serve, and the wear uniforms to further identify their station. Have you ever wondered how dragons that have grown so large they can barely move, and sometimes have grown so large they can't fit through the entrance to their treasure horde, eat? Kobolds. They do the cooking and the cleaning, the accounting of the gold, the jewels, and the candlesticks, they light and replace the torches, and keep the piles of loot dusted off and sparkling. If you're the guest of a dragon and honestly, I imagine a cavern under a mountain as a sort of mansion it's the kobolds that turn down the covers and leave a mint on your pillow.

Much like a Victorian servant, the kobolds are grateful for the job. They get a salary. When they go into town to do the marketing, they're treated with respect because their coin is good and the world for The Dragon. No one is going to mess with them. It's very Dickensian, but that cuts both ways. Kobolds who are not in service are generally destitute and starving, at the bottom of both the social and natural food chain, preyed upon but just about every other creature in the world. If humanoid races were ranked in a caste system, the kobolds would be untouchables, the lowest of the low.

Kobold Hide doesn't try to recast these small reptilian humanoids as more worthy opponents. I've succumbed to the influence of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo and tried instead to make them into worthy allies, faithful friends, and objects of sympathy. But if you kick them, they will bite back. You can only push a person so far.