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

 

[Charlaquin]

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!).

Hengeyokai were great for this! They did have some specific “Far East” flavor that you might not necessarily want in your anthro character… but, I mean, there’s a lot of crossover between furries and weebs (I kid! But, also, I’m low-key a bit of both things myself )

It does seem like lately WotC have been hinting that they might be open to doing more with Kara-Tur, though. I doubt they’d fully resurrect Oriental Adventures, but some kind of Traveler’s Guide to Kara-Tur type product might not be out of the question.

 

[Tonguez]

don't shifters function as a bit of a catch all anthro species?

edit, eh, just read their description, it's a bit of a stretch, but i feel it would be easy for wizards to tweak their description to fit that role better.

people try to push that but Shifters face the same issues as Arrdlings - they are a lack of commitment. Ardlings dont satisfy people who want Furry races and they dont satisfy people who want Aasimars. Equally Shifters arent Furrys and arent really Lycanthropes, theyre a compromise.

heneyokai are good but have the Asian cultural baggage - just give us a proper Humanoid Canine

 

[Charlaquin]

You know who did a pretty decent catch-all furry species for 5e, actually? Stellarabooks in Kinks and Cantrips. I mean, it’s weirdly broken up into separate species for Predators and Prey, presumably for feral play reasons, but they could easily be lumped together into a pretty solid build-your-own furry species. They also had a third species that was like the same thing, but with mythical animal traits, which could also be grouped in with the other two.

And, if you’re not too keen on using a sexually explicit book at the game table, or want to avoid the explicit stuff yourself for whatever reason, there’s an SFW version called Curious Explorer's Guide to Bundheim. I was pleasantly surprised how much stuff in that book would work perfectly fine in a regular, family-friendly D&D campaign.

 

[Aldarc]

I like the draconic kobolds for D&D.

That said, my preferred alternative for draconic kobolds aren't the dog-faced kobolds. It's the rat-like kobolds.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

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!).

I feel like an update of Oriental Adventures is 100% possible if they do three things:

1) Make damn sure it isn't called Oriental Adventures.

2) Make it about Japanese mythology specifically (including cutting or redoing any elements which aren't present in Japanese myth, but that's not very much). About 90% of the original OA was Japan focused which was part of the big problem with TSR acting like it covered East Asian mythology in general.

3) Get actual Japanese people to work on it, particularly in leadership roles (pref. Japanese-Japanese to Japanese-Americans myself, but that might not be practical)