Poll: Kobolds and tails

[Kichwas]

Have there ever been kobolds without tails?????

In GURPS Kobolds are little blue chubby men that look sort of like Cherubs and act like a cross between a Gully Dwarf and a Kender.

Go figure...

Last night I had some DnD Kobolds extort the party for a gem in order to pass through their lands freely. I think Kobolds are my favorite monster. Now I need to decide if they got one of the valuable or one of the cheap gems (the PCs haven't appraised them yet).

I described the unseen Kobolds as 'the voices of small barking dragons off in the distance, hidden by the grass and lack of anything but dim moonlight." Had a draconic speaking PC make a skill check of some kind at one time to tell which Kobold was female, but don't remember what I used.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

With

I've always pictured them with tails but now that you ask I *can* also picture them without. But I'd have to say most of the time, yeah, they have tails.

 

[KnowTheToe]

I've always pictured them with tails but now that you ask I *can* also picture them without. But I'd have to say most of the time, yeah, they have tails.

No tails, that's funny. Did you hear that guy, he said no tails, isn't that funny. Kobolds without tails, I can't get over it.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

I've got a tail.

 

[Wombat]

Yep, I've seen LOTS of kobolds without tails

Of course, that is pre-D&D, pre-"little lizards who yip and lay traps", back in the "it is a spirit of the field"-type of kobold

I've always wondered how the one became the other...

 

[Ferret]

Who be the four blasphemers who believe not in the tails of kobolds? May your face be doubley slapped with the tail of a kobold!

 

[trancejeremy]

Now that I think about it, I must have formed my mental picture of Kobolds from Dragon mag issue #60. It features a Kobold named Idi Snitman and he and his followers don't have tails.

 

[Ed Cha]

But, I had also just run the Hamlet of Thumble module, which deals with Kobolds (which is why I used it for the example), and the pictures of the kobolds in there don't seem to have tails. At least, it's hard to tell, because they are wearing clothing.

I'll have to tell you the story behind this in a private e-mail, Jeremy.

 

[Gez]

Kobolds, spirits of the field? Blasphemy! The keepers of the buried treasures have always been mine faeries!

If you're a miner, always give some offering for the kobolds. If you do, they'll guide you with strange noise to lead you to rich veins of ore (or whatever you mine). If you don't, they'll provoke cave-ins and firedamp explosion out of spite.

"Kobold" has the same etymology as the metal "cobalt". Proving that if kobolds descend from dragons, it's not from chromatic dragons, but from the (now extinct?) cobalt metallic dragons.

A hard, brittle metallic element, found associated with nickel, silver, lead, copper, and iron ores and resembling nickel and iron in appearance. It is used chiefly for magnetic alloys, high-temperature alloys, and in the form of its salts for blue glass and ceramic pigments. Atomic number 27; atomic weight 58.9332; melting point 1,495°C; boiling point 2,900°C; specific gravity 8.9; valence 2, 3. [German Kobalt, from Middle High German kobolt, variant of kobold, goblin (from silver miners' belief that cobalt had been placed by goblins who had stolen the silver).]

Word of the Day for Thursday June 3, 1999
kobold (KOH-bold), noun:
A kind of domestic spirit in German mythology, corresponding to the Scottish brownie and the English Robin Goodfellow.

"Witch, kobold, sprite... and imp of every kind." --A. J. Symington

"There in the corner is the little black kobold of a doubt making [faces] at him." --Lowell

"The Kobolds were a species of gnomes, who haunted the dark and solitary places, and were often seen in the mines." --Scott

Cobalt, the metal, "the goblin of the mines," was named by those who had to work it after the kobold, since it caused them so much trouble, the ore being arsenical.

That picture is entitled "miners frightened by a kobold". The kobold on the picture don't seem to be tailed, but he's clearly winged, though.

 

[Gez]

Kobolds, spirits of the field? Blasphemy! The keepers of the buried treasures have always been mine faeries!

If you're a miner, always give some offering for the kobolds. If you do, they'll guide you with strange noise to lead you to rich veins of ore (or whatever you mine). If you don't, they'll provoke cave-ins and firedamp explosion out of spite.

"Kobold" has the same etymology as the metal "cobalt". Proving that if kobolds descend from dragons, it's not from chromatic dragons, but from the (now extinct?) cobalt metallic dragons.

A hard, brittle metallic element, found associated with nickel, silver, lead, copper, and iron ores and resembling nickel and iron in appearance. It is used chiefly for magnetic alloys, high-temperature alloys, and in the form of its salts for blue glass and ceramic pigments. Atomic number 27; atomic weight 58.9332; melting point 1,495°C; boiling point 2,900°C; specific gravity 8.9; valence 2, 3. [German Kobalt, from Middle High German kobolt, variant of kobold, goblin (from silver miners' belief that cobalt had been placed by goblins who had stolen the silver).]

Word of the Day for Thursday June 3, 1999
kobold (KOH-bold), noun:
A kind of domestic spirit in German mythology, corresponding to the Scottish brownie and the English Robin Goodfellow.

"Witch, kobold, sprite... and imp of every kind." --A. J. Symington

"There in the corner is the little black kobold of a doubt making [faces] at him." --Lowell

"The Kobolds were a species of gnomes, who haunted the dark and solitary places, and were often seen in the mines." --Scott

Cobalt, the metal, "the goblin of the mines," was named by those who had to work it after the kobold, since it caused them so much trouble, the ore being arsenical.

That picture is entitled "miners frightened by a kobold". The kobold on the picture don't seem to be tailed, but he's clearly winged, though.