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

[BB Shockwave]

Reading through the Dragon+ article on Monsters of the Multiverse:

It's annoying enough that they are retconning Goblinoids to be from the Feywild, but if they do that to Kobolds... Kurtulmak will be pissed.

Everything that should be fairy should be fey.

Kobold is a bit weird tho because the D&D version is clearly not a house sprite, like the actual kobold.

I like to think of it as a nickname because this kind of dragon is small, lives in a cave, and is industrious, like some kobolds (house sprites) are.

The german Kobolds with their stone affinity and mining and stuff... they are basically the D&D Korreds, really.
And the more modern Kobolds (like Pumuckl) look and behave like Leperchauns or Brownies, really.

Meister Eder und sein Pumuckl - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Artist misread the art order.

Wasn't it in 1E monster manual that Kobolds were dog/ratlike and scaly? But later books oddly made them have flat Goblin-like faces, just with horns and tails?
What was the original art supposed to represent, then?

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's annoying enough that they are retconning Goblinoids to be from the Feywild, but if they do that to Kobolds... Kurtulmak will be pissed.

Dude routinely loses to a gnome. I don' think it will be an issue.

 

[BB Shockwave]

And meanwhile, in Japan, Kobolds are just Gnolls or Werewolves.

Who is this Crawford, anyway? Cindy Crawford writes D&D now?

This only improves my taste for 5e lore (though I generally still like 4e lore the best)

4E had lore? More like a mishmash of nonsense.
-"Hey let's lump everything from Demons to Yugoloths to Limbo to the Elemental planes into this soup we call Elemental Chaos, easier to remember."
-"Let's not have alignments, it is too complicated. Let's everyone be unaligned!... but yeah we still need villains. Let's keep Evil, then!"
-"These Thoon Mind Flayers look super interesting, dude, but what is Thoon?" - "Thoon is really everything you want it to be." - "So basically you were too lazy to think of a lore, right?"

I don't really see that fey or goblin connection in the descriptions of early D&D. A bit of it in the art of 2e.

Their stats were like weaker goblins but that was as close as it got.

0e 1973:
"KOBOLDS: Treat these monsters as if they were Goblins except that they will take from 1–3 hits (roll a six-sided die with a 1 or 2 equalling 1 hit, a 3 or 4 equalling 2 hits, etc.)."
1e 1979:
B/X Basic 1981:
2e MC I 1989:

I never understood the big change in art between the b&w and the color AD&D 2E Monster Manual art for Kobolds. And was not just that book, I think Monster Mythology also used this weird Goblin-like design.
However, consistently all the lore since 1E mentions they are scaled. So they have always been reptilian.

A 2e Kobold wasn't even reptilian really.

Yes they were...

Kobold (Monstrous Manual)

"Barely clearing 3 feet in height, kobolds have scaly hides that range from dark, rusty brown to a rusty black"
If they were mammals, they would have fur or just bare skin.
Also:
"For every 40 kobolds in a band there will be one leader and two bodyguards (AC 6; HD 1-1; hp 4 each; damage 1-6). In a lair there will be 5-20 (5d4) bodyguards, females equal to 50% of the males, young equal to 10% of the males and 30-300 (3d10x10) eggs. "
Unless they are some distant relative of the Platypus or the Echidna, Kobolds are unlikely to be mammals if they lay eggs.

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.

Oh, 4E already beat you to that. Remember the silly looking Frost Titans made of ice and Hill Giants made if stone?

 

[Jer]

"And it's 1 2 3 what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me I if care about lore,
cause I'll start an Edition War.
And it's 5 6 7 open up the tangent gates,
let's get this thread off track
Whoopie! There's no going back!"

 

[Voadam]

4E had lore? More like a mishmash of nonsense.

The Dawn War is some great lore.
The World Axis cosmology is pretty fantastic lore.
The lore about Grazzt's turns from Angel to Archdevil to Demon Lord is top notch.

You don't get a lot from the 4e core MM, but you didn't in the 3e MM either.

 

[teitan]

One thing I love about D&D is I can say nope and just ignore what WOTC says when it comes to lore.

 

[Vaalingrade]

The Dawn War is some great lore.
The World Axis cosmology is pretty fantastic lore.
The lore about Grazzt's turns from Angel to Archdevil to Demon Lord is top notch.

You don't get a lot from the 4e core MM, but you didn't in the 3e MM either.

Agreed. I mean they even released entire books of lore.

But like I said, more than a decade later and the weird muckraking machine used to attack the edition is still intact and people still feel the need to make use of it.

 

[BB Shockwave]

I don't like the detail of the black nose as dogs because this gives them a ridiculous touch. They are like the evil cousin of Wally Wator (Hanna Barbera's cartoon character).

Funny, I absolutely adore the 5E Kobold design because it changed little compared to 3E/4E but the black nose,w hich just makes them TOTES ADORBS! I have my Icons of the Realms Kobold Warband on top of my PC even now.

 

[BB Shockwave]

Just embrace the way Transformers do it. Everything is canon, just not all at the same time. That's how we have first combiner Abominus versus Quintesson creation Abominus versus experiment of Shockwave Abominus. All canon, just at different times.

As a Transformers fan... no that's is not at all how it is.
-There is a G1 Sunbow cartoon Abominus who appeared out of nowhere serving Quintessons (they were never implied to have been built by them, more like controlled, they serve Galvatron in later episodes).
-There is Marvel G1 comic Abominus, these Terrorcons came to Nebulos with Scorponok, and later to Earth.
-Then there is Transformers Prime - Beast Hunters Abominus, who according to a toy promo leaflet and CGI online games, were cloned from ancient Predacon CNA by Shockwave as modern Terrorcons. They never appeared in the actual show.

All three are canon only in their respective, totally separate universes. Not "not at the same time". Marvel G1 and Sunbow G1 are not related at all. They are completely different continuities, even the origin of the Transformers is different in both.
It's basically like how on Toril, Halflings are jolly merry little folk, and on Athas, they are vicious desert nomad cannibals. Same species, different universe.

 

[Jer]

One thing I love about D&D is I can say nope and just ignore what WOTC says when it comes to lore.

This is one of the things that makes RPGs so great. If you're a fan of pretty much any other media and someone is "doing it wrong" in your opinion your choices are to not engage with it at all or to engage with it and be frustrated by it.

RPGs give you the third option of taking what you like, ignoring what you don't, and playing the game the way you want.