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

[Epic Meepo]

This is probably what you were referring to:

Kobold (5 RP) – d20PFSRD

www.d20pfsrd.com

Yep. That's what I was vaguely misremembering. The dragon-colored kobolds.

 

[Epic Meepo]

Yeah exactly - it could even be a kind of "don't feed them after midnight" kind of deal, or like, what happens if a kobold eats dragon flesh or something.

Now I'm imagining an epicurean campaign setting where the origin story of every Humanoid species other than Halfling is "Halfling that ate X." (It would be a world where Aasimar are the edge lords, not Tieflings, because Aasimar get their traits by killing and eating angels!)

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, the lack of a catch-all anthro race in D&D seems like a glaring omission to me

Hengeyokai are probably the closest I know of historically, but there's not an official 5e version (likely because it's tethered to Oriental Adventures and WotC wants to touch that nest of wasps even less than they want to touch Dark Sun, I guess!).

RE: Dragonborn as Kobolds:
One of the big distinctions is that Dragonborn are cast as "proud warrior race guys," which means they're fundamentally heroic and protagonist-coded. Kobolds are on the other side of that. This isn't a dealbreaker, necessarily, but it does mean that the "implied culture" of these creatures is very different, and you might want to consider them as different societies, even if they're kindred critters. Like, someone brought up as a kobold who becomes big and strong likely doesn't then become a figure of knightly justice -- the ideology change would be coarse.

Though, you could do "kobolds are chromatic, dragonborn are metallic," and that'd be a nice distinction.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yep. That's what I was vaguely misremembering. The dragon-colored kobolds.

Pathfinder stole that from my home 3E campaign they had no way of knowing about!

 

[bedir than]

Dragonborn and Kobolds are what rise from the soul-shards of a dead ancient dragon