D&D 5E Kobolds are also from the Feywild now?

[Vaalingrade]

I mean hating gnomes is the right of all sentient beings.

 

[John R Davis]

On a somewhat more serious note " is there anything that SHOULD be from the feywild, that currently isn't?".

I prefer my kobolds as yappy canine types rather than dragons

 

[Hussar]

As I said earlier, I'm rather enjoying this. All this "Oh noes, they are changing lore". Good grief, 5e radically changed the lore of nearly every single monster in the game, adding stuff or taking stuff away. Half the monsters in the Monster Manual are slave races to the other half of the Monster Manual. And they were given huge pats on the back for it.

Now, apparently, change is bad again. Thus the pendulum swings.

 

[Thommy H-H]

Again, I cannot emphasise enough that kobolds aren't fey or even fey-adjacent in the book. It's an error in the interview.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

As I said earlier, I'm rather enjoying this. All this "Oh noes, they are changing lore". Good grief, 5e radically changed the lore of nearly every single monster in the game, adding stuff or taking stuff away. Half the monsters in the Monster Manual are slave races to the other half of the Monster Manual. And they were given huge pats on the back for it.

Now, apparently, change is bad again. Thus the pendulum swings.

You are not wrong. But on the other hand, my players are mostly old folks who really enjoy being connected to 2e:ish era lore. D&D is a game where player characters interact with fantastical beings in a fantasy world, and where deep roleplaying and immersion in the fantasy world is often seen as a goal and "good playing". And imho decades of accumulated lore is an important part of what make that deep immersion possible.

We can play that way no matter what current lore changes and purges WotC do in the name of sales to new and young consumers, so I'm not deeply invested in the everything-is-fey dispute and my campaigns doesn't mirror the current changes. But that gamers that have played D&D for decades express feelings of loss in different ways when WotC decide that lore doesn't matter and races are only skins is neither surprising nor badwrong in my opinion.

Yes, the feyifiing may be seen as a bit too overt market move to accommodate new and young players who grew up with anime, and where playing blue butterfly people with big eyes and small mouth in a loreless tabula rasa world is a selling point. But in the end I guess more and younger players is good for the hobby.

As long as we get 5e Spelljammer with intact lore of course, don't you dare touch that! ;-)

 

[Hussar]

You are not wrong. But on the other hand, my players are mostly old folks who really enjoy being connected to 2e:ish era lore. D&D is a game where player characters interact with fantastical beings in a fantasy world, and where deep roleplaying and immersion in the fantasy world is often seen as a goal and "good playing". And imho decades of accumulated lore is an important part of what make that deep immersion possible.

We can play that way no matter what current lore changes and purges WotC do in the name of sales to new and young consumers, so I'm not deeply invested in the everything-is-fey dispute and my campaigns doesn't mirror the current changes. But that gamers that have played D&D for decades express feelings of loss in different ways when WotC decide that lore doesn't matter and races are only skins is neither surprising nor badwrong in my opinion.

Yes, the feyifiing may be seen as a bit too overt market move to accommodate new and young players who grew up with anime, and where playing blue butterfly people with big eyes and small mouth in a loreless tabula rasa world is a selling point. But in the end I guess more and younger players is good for the hobby.

As long as we get 5e Spelljammer with intact lore of course, don't you dare touch that! ;-)

But, that's my point. If you are connected to 2e'ish era lore, 5e has pretty much nothing for you. Virtually all monsters, settings and whatnot are so far removed from their 2e counterparts. A 2e Kobold wasn't even reptilian really. Just another kind of goblin. The whole Draconic thing is largely a 3e thing to justify why kobolds had sorcerers. On and on. Good grief, this was a 2e orc:

Then this was an orc:

Now this is an orc

It's pretty laughable that this is supposed to be the same creature.

 

[Minigiant]

One annoyance I have with 5e fluff is it doesn't stray. All magic is spells. All nonhuman humanoid who use tricks or brains are Fey linked.

Soon Giants will be descendants of Elementals.

 

[Hussar]

I wonder if there isn't a separate issue here too - we only really have a very, VERY small palette of monsters to work from in 5e. Compared to any other edition, we just don't have a whole lot of critters this time around. 2e had a BAJILLION monsters in it. 3e and 4e both had multiple Monster Manuals even in their short runs.

We have the Monster Manual and things like Modenkainens and Volos, both of which add some monsters, but, for a good chunk add variations of existing monsters too.

I just happened to open my 3e Monster Manual here and realized that there's a BUNCH of monsters just in the 3e MM that never made it to 5e.

So, the impact of these lore changes become more pronounced. Before, we wouldn't change, say, hobgoblins to be fae. We'd simply make a new monster and they'd be variants. Fifteen thousand different flavors of elf for example. But, now, because we have such a MUCH smaller number of monsters to work from, and WotC doesn't seem to have any interest in banging out new monster books - it makes these changes a lot more pronounced than they would be before.

 

[Hriston]

Yep. My PDF of the 3rd edition 1979 7th printing says:

GOBLINS (and Kobolds): Goblins and Kobolds see well in dimness or dark, but they do not like bright light. When fighting in full daylight or bright light they must subtract 1 from their Morale Rating, as well as 1 from any die rolled. Because of their reciprocal hatred, Hoblins (Kobolds) will automatically attack any Dwarves (Gnomes) within charging distance. Hobgoblins fight as Armored Foot and defend as Heavy Foot. Their Point Value is 2 1/2 .
Morale Rating — 5 Point Value — 1 1/2

So the gnome hatred seems to be there as well.

There is a note in the 1979 printing that says it is revised and expanded so I could not say what the original that OD&D was based on specifically said.

Good point. I was also looking at the 3rd Edition. It would be interesting if someone who has access to a 1st or 2nd Edition copy could compare the text of the Goblins entry to see if it was changed.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Beyond one line in this specific interview I've seen no mention of kobolds being from the Feywild anywhere else. Plus, they did not receive the Fey Ancestry trait like goblinoids did in MPMotM.

If kobolds really are supposed to be from the Feywild now then they've done a poor job of communicating it. Either he misspoke, he spoke correctly but the Feywild connection has yet to be established in an official product, or this is some weird one-off comment possibly inspired by a personal campaign like that time Mike Mearls claimed all D&D gods used to be mortals.