Kobolds

Koboids are reptilian humanoids that worship dragons as demigods and serve them as minions and toadies. Kobolds inhabit dragons' lairs when they can but more commonly infest dungeons, gathering treasures and trinkets to add to their own tiny hoards.

Strength in Numbers. Kobolds are egg-laying creatures. They mature quickly and can live to be "great wyrms" more than a century old. However, many kobolds perish before they reach the end of their first decade. Physically weak, they are easy prey for predators. This vulnerability forces them to band together. Their superior numbers can win battles against powerful adversaries, but often with massive casualties on the kobold side.

Tunnelers and BuìIders. Kobolds make up for their physical ineptitude with a cleverness for trap making and tunneling. Their lairs consist of low tunnels through which they move easily but which hinder larger humanoids. Kobolds also riddle their lairs with traps. The most insidious kobold traps make use of natural hazards and other creatures. A trip wire might connect to a spring-loaded trap that hurls clay pots of flesh-eating green slime or flings crates of venomous giant centipedes at intruders.

The Lost God.In addition to the dragons they revere, kobolds worship a lesser god named Kurtulmak. Legends speak of how Kurtulmak served as Tiamat's vassal in the Nine Hells until Garl Glittergold, the god of gnomes, stole a trinket from the Dragon Queen's hoard. Tiamat sent Kurtulmak to retrieve the trinket, but Garl Glittergoid played a trick on him, collapsing the earth and trapping the kobold god in an underground maze for eternity. For this reason, kobolds hate gnomes and pranks of any kind. Kurtulmak's most devoted worshipers dedicate themselves to finding and releasing their lost god from his prison-maze,

Wìnged Kobolds. A few kobolds are born with leathery wings and can fly. Known as urds, they like to lurk on high ledges and drop rocks on passersby. Although the urds' wings are seen as gifts from Tiamat, the Dragon Queen, wingless kobolds are often envious of those gifts.