What is a Kobold?
In folklore, there is noticeable debate as to whether a kobold is a sort of lizard or a sort of dog. They are well known for being snivelling, impish, and generally up to no good. At least one internet user has described the lizard variant as "a dragon, but make it a chihuahua." Here at AvantGoblin, the conclusion is all of these. Kobolds are strange little semi-reptillian things with hair, beaks, and fin-flaps. The hair can be just on the head or spread over the body. The beaks can be full snoots or just little clicky bitey things, and may be jagged enough to contain or resemble teeth. The fins are not at all useful in an aquatic setting, and may function as something between ears and horns, but they come in very handy for the more bat-ear-dependent linguistics of goblins. Their design at this time is based loosely on a leopard gecko by way of a bearded dragon, but more variants are being worked on. They come in a wide variety of colors and patterns, and are roughly goblin-sized, give or take. Kobolds have perfectly normal bones, scaly-seeming skin that is surprisingly soft to the touch, and three toes on each limb - two to the front and one opposable - with long digits and sharp, non-retractable claws.
Culture, Care, and Concerns
Kobold Husbandry
Kobolds are primarily male-gendered by default, but will transition to female as needed to produce eggs. Some transition back afterwards, and some do not. They lay soft-shelled eggs in clutches of one to four, with a short gestation period, and often eat the shell, sometimes before the egg has even hatched fully, leading to some urban legends of both live births and cannibalistic mothers. They cannot be cross-bred with any other known species.
Kobolds do not mate for life; they barely mate at all, but do stay together in the nest they were born in. In a clutch of eggs, usually only one will become an egg-layer for any length of time. She will leave her family to seek a temporary mate, and return with eggs to dump on her clutch-brothers. Sometimes she will transition back to male to help the boys out with the eggs (more common with one or no clutch-brothers), but often enough will remain female and wander off to whatever shenanigans, only returning with more eggs when the little ones are fending for themselves more and the boys have left them in the original nest and built a new one for the next clutch. Generational nests then pass to the first-borns, with parents establishing new nests for every set, stopping only when the eggs stop coming and they either settle in to the final, unusued nest, or when they simply stop building nests and wander off into the world as a form of retirement.
"Nests" are literal nests, built of usually sticks, but sometimes assorted found objects of an egg-defending sturdiness. A "new" nest may be as little as twenty feet away from the old nest, allowing several generations to help each other out with the hatchlings, forming colonies. These colonies can get fairly large if large game or a steady food source is available, but this rarely happens without a decent amount of infighting.
Kobolds do not age with grace; when they are no longer able to hunt or care for themselves, they become Food.
 |
 |
 |
Cuisine
Like most sapient lizard types, kobolds live by the principle of "friend or food?". A Friend is to be kept alive as much as possible, but may become Food if they are dead and have no expressly stated wishes for the body. Food is any enemy, and can be summarily turned into more edible food by way of a swift dispatch and butchering.
Kobolds eat a LOT, like a surprising amount, and can eat just about anything, but strongly prefer meat or things with the texture of meat (like some mushrooms or fiberous vegetables). They turn to cannibalism alarmingly quickly in food-restricted scenarios, but will always go after Food and non-kobold Friends first. This carnivorism and reflective Friend or Food behavior leaves them in a somewhat parasitic state, usually near larger lizards (such as Lizardfolk or other human-sized-and-brained reptillians), powerful Salamancer colonies, or dragon lairs; things with more effective hunting abilities and enough excess to leave behind scavengable remains.
 |
 |
 |
Goblin Culture; Alone and Assimilated
Goblins can and will live in all-goblin settlements, but will happily adopt and co-mingle with anything non-hostile they come across. Some of these attempts go better than others; the local AvantGoblin colony has mingled with pixies, kobolds, gnomes, trolls, imps, poms, gremlins, and mushroom pygmies. Humans and other civilizations with hard laws and dignity tend to view goblins as invasive, an eyesore, and vermin-adjacent, digging through trash and screaming and hanging out with raccoons and other "lesser" creatures. This is a pervasive motif in a lot of human literature.
Goblins do prefer the term "opportunistic" to invasive. They're a quite effective clean-up species, taking things that are no longer wanted and giving them new life. They are on the whole loud and a bit rowdy, but not too much different than a large collective of human children, with silliness and bizarre rules that are specific yet meaningless, and can range from cartoon levels of goofy to remarkably well-read. They are always happy to go so far as adopting unwanted babies, and the biggest specified nusiance from settlements sporting a goblin colony is that goblins are not actually fantastic at discerning the exact point of "unwanted," and will walk off with everything from apples with a bruise to whole babies with grouchy sitters who wish them away.
Goblins do not have a native currency, and work primarily in either "you don't want this so it's mine now," or trade and barter. Just about anything is fair game for this, from snacks and ingredients, to useful items, to nest trinkets, even teeth (which are found rocks anyway). These trades are highly subjective based on the interest and negotiation of the other party. Goblins struggle to assimilate to more numerically based currencies, but do understand the concept of "swindled," and are thus notorious for theft, underpayment, and attempting to pay for things with buttons and sequins (which are shiny, and therefore quite valuable by all goblin accounts). This is likely the reason that goblins also have only one word for buy, borrow, lend, gift, steal, sell, and take from the trash... it's "steal". That being said, roving goblin merchants are quite likely to have some incredible merchandise on the higher end, and be quite happy to trade enchanted wares or gemstones for some acceptably interesting trinkets. Goblin merchants who work successfully with mixed-species populations long-term often have food trucks or limited inventories of very specific items for sale, with a value they can identify from a numeric currency, exact change only, over or under just gets you that many things.
 |
 |
 |
Art, Music, and Literature
Goblins, not having bones, are not especially dextrous; but they are better at smaller endeavors than large ones. Though smithing, agriculture, and architecture are out of reach, goblins will happily sing, draw, make pottery (to fill with tasty things, mostly), and most other creative endeavors they can find or imagine. Sewing is popular, but more so for large decorative stitching or patchwork over fairly utilitarian style choices, as it's difficult to create over-complex patterns or fine embroidery and lace with fat little fingers. Drawing is done for informational signs as well as decoration of spaces. Artwork in general tends to have some purpose, even if the purpose is "be shiny". No notable greatness on a worldwide scale comes from this, but there is a certain charm to it, popular with some collectors.
It is theorized that goblin music is less "music" on a notes and skill level, so much as it is using tools to make an incredible amount of noise and racket. This has never stopped anyone, and several all-goblin bands are quite popular in the punk and metal genres.
Goblin linguistics are, like most things they interact with, made of stolen and simplified bits of other things that have been come across and borrowed. The goblin "language" is indeed incomprehensible to most non-goblins, and can only be learned from a goblin, but is little more than a crazed pidgen, and easiest to use if the speaker has large and expressive ears or head decor (as many of the other AvantGoblin resident species sport). Literature often starts vocal, but quickly becomes corrupted and exaggerated with re-tellings. Most records are a favorite version of the "author" of whatever story, written down with its own quirky bastardization, but now slightly less likely to be re-corrupted... until it's read aloud. Most goblin literature that makes its way into the wider world does so by finding its way into the hands of children or people with an interest in things designed for children.
Additional Notes
Goblins are the primary study and interest of this operation. Other creatures have been adopted in, and have their own lore (upcoming!) but are not currently half so fleshed out for the most part. At this time, suggestions and consultation is quite likely to become lore canon; get in touch!
Goblins are not for everyone. They are a very particular flavor, and the AvantGoblin colony specifically an even more particular flavor than that. It is okay to have your own variety of goblins or anything else, and care for them in your own way... but if any of this sounds familiar or appealing, then adopt your own goblin! Or become one! And not just merch-wise, but embrace the lifestyle of being just a little messy and not great with the hands. Nothing matters except when dinner is!