Few races have endured as much as the lizard-like kobolds. A brutal and violent race, kobolds are often seen by others as bestial and of low intelligence. Frequently this is true, but those kobolds who have overcome their bestial sides can be quite ruthless and cunning. Small but making up for their size with ferocity, kobolds are often used as mercenaries by those looking for cheap labor and cannon fodder. This isn’t seen as exactly honorable by kobolds, but most grit their teeth and work quietly, deciding that some work is better than none. Mercenary kobolds who are successful in their campaigns are given some respect, but the wild kobold packs running naked through the woods and preying on livestock tend to bring the race’s reputation down. A few older, wearier kobolds have resorted to capturing and training their feral brothers as beasts of burden or attack dogs, if for no other reason than to feel as though they have some control over how their people behave.

Though often given to martial strength, many kobold have a natural aptitude for magic. Even kobold who are not magicians often carry spell-infused trinkets, blessed armor, and cursed weapons given them by kobold mages. This tendency suggests that, contrary to what most believe, there exists some sort of central kobold authority, and perhaps even a society of a sort. If this is true, it is no doubt a very fractured society, given how few of the world’s many kobolds are capable of civil behavior. Whatever the case, kobolds certainly aren’t sharing. Not that the other races ask anyway.

In fact, kobold mages are given great respect by other kobolds. Naturally hierarchical, kobolds in recent times follow two pecking orders: on one chain, status is determined by victory in battle, coins made, customers satisfied, and soldiers one commands; the other path to power is based on raw magical ability. However, the highest captains will always defer to a magician of comparable status, except when their own expertise is obviously more applicable.

History
Among themselves, kobold speak of The Three Sorrows of the Kobold Nation. These disasters are viewed as the defining moments of their history, and the kobold believe that their scope can never be truly understood. Kobold art, when it exists, is always exploring new aspects of one of the Tree. The first of the Three Sorrows was the great war with the dorfs. When the dorfs’ population first began to expand, many kobold villagers were displaced, their homes destroyed to make room for the expanding dorfish cities. The kobold fought to defend themselves, but the rapidly growing dorf race pushed them back. Their numbers effectively halved by the war, the kobolds were forced to abandon most of their lands. The end of this was that the many scattered kobold villages eventually grouped together as one kingdom, but even that kingdom was smaller and less powerful than some of the largest settlements from before the war.

The Second Sorrow befell this unified kingdom. When the Imperials magically transported their city from its island location to the continent, it appeared in the sky above the former kobold capital. The magical fallout from the blast destroyed the kobold city and rendered most of the kingdom’s lands uninhabitable. The kobold who survived the blast but could not escape the dead-zone’s borders starved to death soon after.

However, these pale before the terror of the Third Sorrow, of which the Second was only a portent. The cause of the Third Sorrow was the creation of the Asmodai. When the demons entered the world as a new race, the universe bent and cracked to accommodate their arrival, rewriting itself so that the Asmodai had always existed. In fact, the Asmodai have effectively replaced the kobolds, as in the new world that resulted none of the other races recalled the Kobold Nation’s existence. The dorfs lost all record of the great war, and neighboring cities forgot what they had been built next to—unless they were now built near Asmodai fortresses. Even the kobolds themselves forgot who they were; according to the new universe, the kobolds were beasts, exactly like any other wild animal, and how could the kobolds argue with reality?

The answer, of course, is magic. Kobold mages were able to protect themselves from the altered reality, and the most powerful were able to protect their non-magical neighbors. These "old kobold" are the last remnants of the world before the Asmodai; even their ruins have disappeared. Magic-using kobolds are the remaining legacy of the Kobold Nation, and so are given greater respect by their fellow survivors. Whether magic-users or not, these kobold remain unified in thought even as they spread out, trying to re-carve out a new nation in a reality that has rejected them. They must be careful, however; if any given kobold wanders too far away from some source of magic, they are in danger of becoming an animal like the other kobolds of the world.

Relations with other races
Wandering packs of animal-minded kobold are prone to attack at the slightest provocation, and as far as other races know, these are the way kobold are and always have been. Kobold working as mercenaries have to work just to prove they aren’t animals, and are rarely trusted even by those who employ them. Without cities or towns to call their own, kobolds instead build easily collapsible camps, erecting them near food and water sources. They may enter other cities to trade, but never settle with anyone but other kobolds. Given their history, kobolds trust others as little as they are trusted. Kobolds working as mercenaries, however, if they are successful enough, are eventually given grudging respect by their employers, and sometimes work alongside standing militia as peers.

Adventurers and NPCs
To state the obvious, kobold do not work well with others. If handled correctly, they offer a wealth of story-telling opportunities, but unless the group is an all-kobold the GM must make sure the kobold character does not hinder the other players’ enjoyment. Players who wish to play kobold should talk it over with their party first. Of course, many people will be attracted to the challenges involved in roleplaying a kobold, especially if the party contains an Asmodai character as well. Kobold NPCs will probably mostly be of the monstrous, bestial variety, but if the players discover the existence of the old Kobold Nation, a whole campaign might follow from that hook.