Kobold

Kobolds are a species of dragonkin, small in statue, with a long history of being kept as slaves in multiple cultures. They're descended from dragons, being the result of the second attempt of the Dragonflights to make a servant race, succeeding dracons in that role.

Biology

Kobolds are humanoids who stand at average roughly 3-4 feet tall, and are covered in moderately thick fur, which is unique among the draconic races. They have digitigrade feet, unlike any of the other civilized peoples. Their hands have five stubby, clawed fingers. Their natural lifespan tends to the 50-80 year range.

Sexual characteristics

Kobolds don't possess any overt outward sexual characteristics and the sexes can usually only at a glance be distinguished from each other via scent, which can usually only be identified by other kobolds, dragons, or particularly perceptive dracons. In addition, kobolds possess the ability to change their sex over the course of 3-6 weeks, which happens automatically to balance out the sex ratio in a group of kobolds.

Gender identity and transition

Due to the aforementioned sexual characteristics, kobolds tend to have different views on gender and sexuality than the other civilized peoples, and many of them could be considered agender or genderfluid by those peoples' terms. The process by which the changing of a kobold's sex happens is often artificially induced, by kobolds who wish to do so, by isolating themselves with individuals of the same sex as their current one which have high levels of the respective sex hormone.

Kobolds who identify as a binary gender may similarly choose to take hormone supplements to effectively lock themselves into the respective sex. Since due to this, they have a higher than normal level of their sex hormone, they are often recruited to take on jobs that entail assisting transitioning kobolds to the opposite sex.

Subraces

Kobolds have three distinct breeds, based on the tastes and needs of each dragonflight that took part in their creation.

Forge kobold

The breed created by the Iron Dragonflight, most abundant in Mithros. Their primary Aura alignment is either Metal or Fire. As slaves, they were usually utilized as artisans or support combatants. Their defining physical characteristic is the slightly metallic fur, which tends to clump up into spikes when not groomed, and acts as a flame retardant that protects them from convection heat prevalent in locations such as volcanic dragon lairs and forges.

Rock kobold

The breed created by the Brown Dragonflight, most abundant in Dunieth, as well as the most numerous of the kobold breeds. Primary Aura type is Earth. As slaves, they were usually used as manual laborers or front line cannon fodder. While rock kobolds are viewed by most as the 'baseline' breed of kobolds, they have the greatest physical growth potential, being able to build more muscle than the other breeds and stand a little taller and wider at average, as a result.

Snow kobold

The breed created by the White Dragonflight, most abundant in Frysgard. Primary Aura type is Ice. As slaves, they were utilized as serving staff, pets (sought after as such due to their more voluminous white fur), or scouts.

Society

Kobolds in cities

Major kobold clans

Some kobolds are lucky enough to have been born or adopted into one of the powerful major clans like the Bronzecaster or Tourmaline clans and enjoy a status of relative comfort compared to the typical kobold. These clans are very wealthy and influential and its members enjoy status equal to at least a middle class citizen of the other civilized peoples and up, depending on how far their particular family is removed from their clan's main branch.

Slum kobolds

Unfortunately, those kobolds who have no clan status at all are very likely to be lower class citizens of their cities and are thus relegated to the slums, where they have to contend with the squalor of slum living in general as well as disdain from both the classes above them as well as slum denizens of other species. They often end up as the lowest of the low in the slums and become sources of extraordinarily cheap labor, local bandit gangs' minions, or scapegoats, or panhandlers, and as such are in no better state than when their race was enslaved.

Kobold exclusivity zones

Whether they're officially zoned by city councils with a segregation agenda or formed as a natural consequence to the other races' disdain for kobolds, many cities' slums end up with one or more territories that are near exclusively populated by kobolds who have banded together and either drove all others out of their zone or were pushed to an undesirable area by a superior group or even city authorities. These areas are usually ruled by the lesser kobold clans such as the rock kobold Zircon Clan, who control the Kobold Exclusivity Zone of Outer Cania, who can operate through various systems - some are run like enclave town societies, while others operate like organized crime syndicates.

In dragon lairs

Regardless of their status in the cities of the civilized peoples, kobolds are still the most favored minions of dragons, and thus, many kobolds remain in the service of dragons. The most common arrangement of kobold societies serving dragons is a network of warrens around a dragon's lair proper.

Kobold clans

Kobold families are organized into various clans - each subspecies has several highly influential clans in kobold society and numerous smaller ones. The list of clans is as follows:

Culture

Naming traditions

Kobold names tend to almost always be two syllables and usually don't denote a gender unless it's borrowed from another culture.

Dress

Kobolds of most walks of life, even high ranking members of the major clans, tend to favor lighter clothing that doesn't cover much, or even go without any clothing at all, since in most cultures who kept kobolds as slaves would not allow it to them and kobolds' cultural norms adapted to that restriction.

History

Kobolds have a long history of forced servitude. They were first created as a collaborative project between the Brown, Iron, and White dragonflights as a continuation of the project that created dracons. They were conditioned to have more subservient personalities and less of a capacity to fight back against their oppressors. These traits made them vastly superior to dracons as common laborers and minions, as they were far less likely to revolt. This was later exploited by the civilized peoples, who enslaved tribes in the wild in a similar manner. This practice was banned in Mithros in 10063 DC following the Drakeport slave riots of 10060. The Ka'aras Sovereignty and Nikosian Empire followed suit in 10067 and 10068, respectively. Slavery of kobold is still legal, albeit not widely practiced, in Nethron.