This is the sixth article looking at the lineages in the Tales of the Valiant game, not as fantasy stereotypes but as if they’re alien species similar to what you’d find in science fiction.

Your character’s lineage should be a cornerstone of deep roleplaying, not just a mechanism for gaining some bonuses you’d like to have. Elves, dwarves, smallfolk, and the crew aren’t just humans with pointy ears or lush beards. Like everyone, you and me included, they are products of their culture, their upbringing, and their genes, which are very different from one lineage to another: one might even say alien. They don’t think, act, or view the world the way humans do—and that’s a fascinating roleplaying challenge.

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The Assumptions

This article looks at kobolds with the typical, recommended heritage of salvager or supplicant. Some of what’s stated here won’t apply to kobolds with different heritages, and it might apply to other characters with the salvager or supplicant heritage. In general, wherever we state “kobold,” we mean “typical salvager or supplicant kobold.”

The traits ascribed to kobolds in this article aren’t exhaustive or universal. Devise your own cultural details for your character, using these as a guide. But make it different, thought-provoking, and most of all, a solid hook for a unique roleplaying experience. If you want to play your character like a human, play a human.

What Makes a Kobold?

The recommended heritage choices for kobolds are salvager and supplicant. Supplicant portrays kobolds in the more traditional light, although it’s purely an RPG tradition; the kobolds of RPGs bear little resemblance to the kobolds of Earthly mythology. Salvager is a more recent interpretation of kobold culture. Still, it’d be ridiculous to point at one or the other and say “this represents true kobolds.” They’re both equally good and equally interesting choices.

And while players must choose one, they aren’t mutually exclusive. You’d expect to find kobolds with supplicant traits in a salvager clan and vice versa. So when we say “kobold” in this article, it refers equally to both salvager and supplicant kobolds. If we mean one or the other specifically, we’ll say so.

Besides everything else we’ll get to, kobolds share one uncomfortable facet with orcs and beastkin: most people see them as foes of civilization rather than as friends. However, unlike those other two lineages, kobolds seldom go out of their way to dispel any of that distrust and suspicion. They simply don’t care, or they find a way to turn it to their advantage.

With all that said, what characteristics set kobolds apart from other lineages?

• Kobolds are described as cunning, cagey, and strategic, but they’re also acutely aware of their weaknesses.

• Kobolds are egg-laying reptiles whose society has no family structure.

• They have an aptitude for cobbling together and repairing all kinds of machines, especially traps.

• Kobolds are inquisitive to the point where they will put themselves in significant danger to satisfy their curiosity.

• Because they are “small but fierce,” kobolds understand the value of alliances—and the value of sometimes breaking alliances.

Small but Fierce

In an age but dimly remembered (1987), the now-defunct Dragon Magazine ran an article titled “Tucker’s Kobolds” by Roger E. Moore. It described a band of kobolds—generally considered nuisance creatures before then—that inflicted a humiliating defeat on a party of high-level adventurers who brazenly invaded the kobolds’ warrens, arrogantly expecting to meet no resistance worthy of the label. The story was a true account from a campaign Moore played in. The kobolds beat the “heroes” because they knew their territory and they used all of it to their advantage and to the invaders’ disadvantage.

This wasn’t just a matter of knowing the chokepoints. The kobolds engineered the environment to maximize their strengths, such as channeling the attackers through low, narrow tunnels they could barely squeeze into but where the kobolds could move and fight without hindrance. The characters got trapped in chambers where kobolds could shoot darts through narrow slits and pour hot oil through murder holes while the invaders’ weapons were useless.

This idea sits at the heart of kobold psychology: because they are small and physically unimposing, other creatures underestimate them. And being underestimated is its own strength.

Being small forces kobolds to be cautious, cunning, and ruthless. Anything that can be turned to the kobolds’ advantage, must be weaponized. Once they have the upper hand, they fight hard.

Kicking an enemy while he’s down isn’t foul play. The only thing better than kicking a downed enemy is kicking a helpless one. Only stupid creatures fight fair. Never give someone the chance to hit back if you can prevent it.

None of this succeeds without teamwork. Kobolds survive and prosper only to the extent that they work together. A lone kobold is easy pickings. A group of kobolds with a common mission and a bit of time to get ready can come up with ingenious force multipliers (or ingenious escape plans) (as Tucker’s kobolds proved).

Are You My Mommy?

The answer to that question is always “who knows? Who cares? Stop asking foolish questions.”

Kobolds are reptiles. That isn’t stated directly in the rulebook, but all the illustrations of kobolds clearly portray reptiles. It’s also in line with the long tradition of how kobolds have been imagined since the very first RPGs and with their close association to dragons.

The rules are silent on whether they’re warm- or cold-blooded. There’s good evidence that some dinosaurs were warm-blooded and their descendents (birds) are warm-blooded, so kobolds can certainly be warm-blooded reptiles.

What’s important is that kobolds hatch from eggs and are raised communally. No kobold knows or cares who its parents are. Kobold society has no family structure that you or I would recognize. The only family that matters is the entire clan and the individual’s siblings—other hatchlings from the same year’s brood.

A kobold’s closest associations throughout its life are with its broodmates. These are also its strongest rivalries. The closest human analogy would be the link between twins or triplets, except kobolds have dozens of such siblings, not just one or two. It’s as if all your classmates from preschool through high school are also your twin brothers and sisters.

Throughout every aspect of your childhood, they’ll be your best friends—but you’re also in constant competition with them for attention, praise, instruction, even food and comfort. You’re probably happy to see them receive punishments that otherwise might fall on you. Young kobolds receive plenty of instruction and some nurturing but little coddling. There’s plenty more where they came from, after all. How is this reflected in kobold adventurers? For most creatures that grew up in a more-or-less traditional family, an adventuring group becomes a surrogate family. Kobolds don’t have that emotional need. They can value their companions’ friendship and support while simultaneously seeing them as rivals for honor and treasure and as shields against risk and punishment—the same way they view their siblings.

Hand Me That Wrench

Kobolds are adept at building and maintaining machines. This is sometimes referred to as an inborn ability, but the only inborn part is the kobold’s small, delicate hands, which give them an edge when working on small, delicate devices. Everything else is learned through study and practice.

However, kobold culture places a high value on this type of tinkering. Young kobolds are encouraged to take things apart, put them back together again, and come up with their own devices. Success is rewarded with praise, food, and prestige among broodmates. Failure is punished with ridicule, extra chores, or a humiliating swat.

The result is that kobolds learn to cobble together and repair machines of all kinds, especially mechanical traps. Salvagers in particular are accustomed to making the most of scraps.

Hold My Beer

The curiosity of kobolds is legendary. So much so that the most effective trap against kobolds isn’t hidden. Rather, it’s easy to spot but devilishly hard and dangerous to disarm or bypass. No self-respecting kobold can turn their back on the challenge of figuring out how it works.

Of course, more than just traps ignite their curiosity. The entire world is one huge, metaphorical trap for kobolds, filled with hungry monsters, vengeful creatures, and other dangers of every kind. Kobolds are curious but they also understand that small, weak creatures like themselves can’t survive unless they know where the danger is at all times.

Hence, what looks like curiosity to outsiders can also be a kobold’s survival instinct. They’re curious about what’s behind the door for curiosity’s sake (and thanks to childhood memories of extra beetles for dinner if they’re the first to get the door open), but they also want to know wether an enemy or monster is waiting behind it. This facet of kobold curiosity makes them excellent scouts and spies. In the process of safeguarding their own scaly hides, they’ll also uncover the information you want to know.

Yet, despite their apparent weakness, a kobold’s reaction when confronted with a dangerous situation is not to run away or hide. Their reaction is to find out exactly what, where, and how dangerous the threat actually is. Paradoxically, kobold “cowardice” often looks a lot like courage.

Yes, Master

Many kobold communities exist in the shadow of, and in alliance with, a much stronger creature. Dragons are a favorite: associations between kobolds and chromatic dragons predate memory. Kobolds provide labor and adoration to the dragon, and the dragon lends magnificence to the kobolds while keeping away all the things that terrify them.

For all their magnificence, however, chromatic dragons are terrible masters. Pleasing it brings status. Displeasing it brings disgrace, pain, or death. Given the differences in their lifespans and the amount of time dragons spend sleeping, it’s likely that every time the dragon awakes, it’s dealing with an entirely new generation of kobolds it has never seen before. It neither knows nor cares who they are. The dragon’s only concern is that kobolds are there to serve it.

That is a dysfunctional and unequal relationship, but it suits the kobolds. Their duties are light and sporadic while the advantages they reap in safety and prestige are constant and substantial.

Roleplaying Your Kobold

When roleplaying your kobold character, keep these principles in mind:

• Consider everything you don’t fully understand to be an active threat.

• Let your fear manifest itself as a need to fill the gaps in your understanding, to learn whether something really is a threat and how much of a threat.

• When the threat is real, let someone else face the danger directly. A kobold prefers the indirect approach.

• Traps are the ultimate indirect approach. They harm the enemy with little or no risk to you.

• Fighting fair is for idiots and dead heroes. Kick enemies when they’re down, stab them in the back, use poison and dirty tricks, and lure foes into rigged situations where risk to you is minimized and victory is guaranteed.

• Having friends is good; having friends who protect you from danger is better; having friends who step between you and a charging gorgon is best of all.

• You can always get more friends.

Follow those guidelines and you’ll create a character people will remember—perhaps even fondly.