D&D General Dragonborn as Kobolds: Yea or Nay?

[Rune]

If you are trying to shoehorn something into older editions, start with the kobolds who were more dog-folk until, what 4e days when the designers changed them. I do like the change into more dragon-folk, but I can keep the two separate like humans and halflings.

Pretty sure that change happened with 3e.

But anyway, along the lines of the OP, the older version of kobolds could evolve into gnolls, maybe?

 

[touc]

In a homebrew world, Pathfinder's Golarian, or maybe Dragonlance, sure. In Dragonlance, kobolds were created to be cannon fodder for the Dark Queen's armies. Perhaps someone tinkered with the model while creating draconians.

Canon predating 3E, no. Kobolds were cunning dogmen that had 0% to do with dragons. But, that all said, folks often forget the best part of D&D from Gygax in one of the old school DMGs: “It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules which is important." If you and your players like it, then bam, make it a part of your game.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

Apparently all kobolds need to do to "evolve" into humanoid sized whatzits is for three of them to stand on the other's shoulders and wear a trenchcoat. That's canon in 5e!

 

[Clint_L]

Seems like a fun idea - why not? The books treat the two as quite distinct, but who cares about that? If your idea works for your campaign concept, then that's all that matters, and as they are both considered draconic species (especially these days) it's not like it's a huge stretch.

 

[Corinnguard]

I would take a peek at the 3E Races of the Dragon book to see the original origins of the Dragonborn, along with the largely forgotten spellscales race. It would be easy to have both be modified/upgraded kobolds, similar to urds.

The Dragonborn in 3e's Races of the Dragon were very different from the Dragonborn in 4e and 5e in that they were originally members of other species who had heeded the call of Bahamut during the Dragonfall War with Tiamat. Those individuals who became Dragonborn would undergo the Rite of Rebirth, give up their past identities and would essentially become Platinum Half-Dragons. Once they became Dragonborn, they would get to follow one of three paths. Path of the Heart- Breath Weapon, Path of the Mind- Darkvision, Low-light Vision and Blindsense, and Path of the Wing- Winged Flight.

The transformation into a Dragonborn in 3e involved the creation of an egg made of dragon scales. Once created, the would be Dragonborn would seal themselves inside and be 'reborn' the next day.

 

[Zeromaru X]

If you are trying to shoehorn something into older editions, start with the kobolds who were more dog-folk until, what 4e days when the designers changed them. I do like the change into more dragon-folk, but I can keep the two separate like humans and halflings.

Actually, 3e was were kobolds became draconic. I know people love to hate 4e, but it's boring when people blame everything they don't like from any edition to 4e...

Anyways, draconic kobolds rulz. They are better than the doggers.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The Dragonborn in 3e's Races of the Dragon were very different from the Dragonborn in 4e and 5e in that they were originally members of other species who had heeded the call of Bahamut during the Dragonfall War with Tiamat. Those individuals who became Dragonborn would undergo the Rite of Rebirth, give up their past identities and would essentially become Platinum Half-Dragons. Once they became Dragonborn, they would get to follow one of three paths. Path of the Heart- Breath Weapon, Path of the Mind- Darkvision, Low-light Vision and Blindsense, and Path of the Wing- Winged Flight.

The transformation into a Dragonborn in 3e involved the creation of an egg made of dragon scales. Once created, the would be Dragonborn would seal themselves inside and be 'reborn' the next day.

Yep! Wildly different than what the dragonborn would be in 4E and 5E.

But in @Epic Meepo's case, that ritual doesn't need to be tied to Bahamut. And turning a kobold into a winged form feels like an urd origin story. (Has there ever been a non-setting-specific explanation for the urds?)

 

[Corinnguard]

But in @Epic Meepo's case, that ritual doesn't need to be tied to Bahamut. And turning a kobold into a winged form feels like an urd origin story. (Has there ever been a non-setting-specific explanation for the urds?)

True. It's quite possible for the Ritual of Rebirth to be co-opted in order to produce Dragonborn who resemble other dragon types such as Chromatic, Metallic and Gem (more if you include the dragon types in PF1).

I haven't seen one yet. Though I did come across how the Urds came to be in the Forgotten Realms setting.

Urd

Urds, sometimes called urd kobolds[5] or winged kobolds,[1] were distant relatives of kobolds,[2][3] with the power of flight,[1][2][3] thanks to a pair of bat-like wings.[2][3] The term also applied to first-generation winged kobolds hatched from eggs laid by kobold mothers.[1][6] The word urd...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

 

[Corinnguard]

The Midgard setting from Kobold Press had a similar rite called the Rite of Draconic Ascension. It was used to transform non-draconic individuals into one of five Dragonkin subspecies in 5e (Flame, Wind, Wave, Stone, and Soldier).

 

[Charlaquin]

If you are trying to shoehorn something into older editions, start with the kobolds who were more dog-folk until, what 4e days when the designers changed them. I do like the change into more dragon-folk, but I can keep the two separate like humans and halflings.

It was 3e that fully pivoted to small dragonfolk kobolds. But they weren’t exactly dog-people before that. Dog noses were the only dog feature explicitly mentioned in their description, and IIRC there was a module that described them barking or maybe yipping. But they also had scales and rat-like tails. So, up until the 3e redesign made them into dragon-people, they were not fully dog-people, dragon-people or rat-people or anything like that. Just a fully unique creature with a strange mishmash of features.