Kobolds
"Flesh woven by irreverent chaos."
![[Image: o7Ecywh.png]](https://i.imgur.com/o7Ecywh.png)
"Flesh woven by irreverent chaos."
In the manner of order and orrery, Elven-kind in their woodland citadels planned all by the motion of the spheres. Feast and festival divided by the unflinching space of time, love and conflict interspersed among what is deemed proper by the heavens. It was this restriction of the exuberance of the divine spark by mortal notions that began in a way to curdle, seeping beneath the surface an unconscious recoil amongst the nether-mind of the Sangreal. It was the plan of Narrative to create these various living creatures with 'plans' and 'goals' and 'strategy', and that plan having been witnessed by that one of darkness infuriated it. From the cold mind of the abyss was wrought then a vision, of pillaging and feasting - of razing and drink - of violence and spontaneity. In the manner of thrashing, barking, yowling pack-beasts of the forests there was the essence of hot-blooded chaos elevated to mind. Flashes of crimson, of impulse, of taking and tearing for the sake of it given form. This hateful child of old brought forth his progeny of filth through the twisting of pre-existing fauna. Like taken by a sickness, the wolves, the coyotes, the foxes and the strays ejected by villages of men lay themselves in secret rooted burrows. Wait to die they did, and did not; bones snapping, body tearing, a new thing arose from that burrow possessed of a newly modeled mind bent upon fury and revelry.
It was this twisted curse appointed to the blameless creatures of the woodland that brought about a variety of color and form in their kind. Typically ranging in height from four feet to six and a half feet, the Kobold possesses a body of fur in the manner of the beast they were. Having the upright form of digitigrade-bipeds, the forelimbs possess hands in the manner of elves and men, equally with minds capable of understanding and using the tools of such races. The hindquarters and legs of a Kobold tend to possess the paws and tails of their beastly progenitors - and their manner of men is only shared in the design of the shoulder and way the head is carried. Heads, mouths, and general behaviors tend to stem in some degree from the animal forebear, including eating and digestion habits. While the Kobold may possess the ability to be integrated into the society at-large, they have a propensity for crime and destructive behaviors by their very nature. In the years after the dawn of life within the Sangreal, elf has been at war with kobold with much evidence to the latter's treachery and destruction.
In the elder days, before the roads broke and the sky seemed closer to the earth, there stood the city of Lethrien—an immaculate work of high elven design, rising in pale tiers along a river that curved like a deliberate brushstroke through the land. Every arch and avenue followed a principle. Every garden was measured, every tree pruned into intention. The elves of Lethrien believed that order was not merely preference, but virtue made visible. Their laws were few but absolute. Their calendars were mapped centuries in advance. Even their songs adhered to ancient structures, passed unaltered from one generation to the next. To deviate was to unravel; to unravel was to fall. Beyond the city’s boundaries stretched a forest long regarded as a stable constant—wild, but predictable. Its edges were patrolled, its deeper regions cataloged. Creatures lived there, certainly, but none that threatened the balance of Lethrien’s existence. Or so the elves believed.
The first signs were dismissed. Hunters reported strange tracks: not wolf, not man, but something that shifted between. Groves at the forest’s edge were found shredded—not consumed, not harvested, but destroyed. Trees torn apart without purpose. Birds fled the canopy in unnatural silence. The Council of Measures recorded these incidents, debated them, and assigned observers. Patterns were sought, hypotheses drafted. Nothing in their long history had prepared them for a force without pattern.
Then came the howling.
It began at dusk, a sound like laughter dragged across broken glass. The forest itself seemed to recoil from it. That night, the outer watchposts fell. By morning, the first refugees staggered into Lethrien’s lower districts—wounded, incoherent, speaking of creatures that walked upright yet moved like beasts, their limbs too long, their jaws too eager. They were called, in the records that followed, the kobold. But no term fully contained them. They did not invade as an army would. They spilled. They erupted from the forest in erratic surges, striking not for gain, nor territory, but for the act of ruin itself. Fields were trampled, not harvested. Wells were fouled. Homes were torn open and left in splinters, as though the act of breaking brought them satisfaction. When met with resistance, their violence sharpened. They did not merely kill—they lingered. They returned to the same places to undo what had been rebuilt, as if driven by a need to deny restoration itself. The elves responded as they always had: with structure. Defensive grids were established. Rotations of archers and mages were assigned precise intervals. Barriers were raised according to geometric principles designed to maximize coverage.
It did not matter.
The dog-men did not respect lines. They did not respond to deterrence. They learned nothing, yet adapted in ways that defied understanding. A wall would hold one night and be bypassed the next, not through strategy, but through sheer, chaotic persistence. Worse still, the forest advanced. Trees at the edge of Lethrien began to grow unchecked, roots cracking stone, branches reaching into avenues once kept pristine. It was as if the wood itself had abandoned its quiet agreement with the city, surging forward to accompany its feral inhabitants. Within the Council, dissent—once unthinkable—took root. Some argued for greater force, others for retreat to inner districts. But every decision required deliberation, every action adherence to established process. Time, once their greatest ally, became their enemy. The breaking point came not with a grand siege, but with a simple failure. A scheduled rotation of defenders did not occur. Messengers sent to correct the lapse were found torn apart. In the absence of that single, precise movement, a section of the city lay exposed—and the kobolds poured through. What followed was not a battle, but an unmaking. Order collapsed under the weight of unpredictability. Streets designed for symmetry became channels of panic. The songs ceased. The laws, though unchanged, became impossible to uphold. For the first time in their history, the elves of Lethrien faced a force that could not be reasoned with, predicted, or integrated into their system. And so, they did the unthinkable. They fled.
Under cover of what defenses remained, the surviving population gathered what they could—records, relics, fragments of their carefully maintained past—and fled southward, abandoning the city that had defined them. Lethrien did not fall in fire, nor was it conquered in the traditional sense. It was rendered incompatible with the nature of its inhabitants. In the years that followed, travelers spoke of a pale ruin swallowed by wild growth, where broken spires rose among tangled branches, and where, at dusk, the howling still echoed through the hollowed streets. Of the elves, it is said they never rebuilt as they once had. Their new settlements were looser, less certain. Their songs changed. Some say they learned resilience. Others say they lost something irretrievable—the belief that the world could be made to hold still. And in quiet moments, when the wind shifts just so, they remember the sound of something that could not be ordered, and the city that could not survive it.
It was this twisted curse appointed to the blameless creatures of the woodland that brought about a variety of color and form in their kind. Typically ranging in height from four feet to six and a half feet, the Kobold possesses a body of fur in the manner of the beast they were. Having the upright form of digitigrade-bipeds, the forelimbs possess hands in the manner of elves and men, equally with minds capable of understanding and using the tools of such races. The hindquarters and legs of a Kobold tend to possess the paws and tails of their beastly progenitors - and their manner of men is only shared in the design of the shoulder and way the head is carried. Heads, mouths, and general behaviors tend to stem in some degree from the animal forebear, including eating and digestion habits. While the Kobold may possess the ability to be integrated into the society at-large, they have a propensity for crime and destructive behaviors by their very nature. In the years after the dawn of life within the Sangreal, elf has been at war with kobold with much evidence to the latter's treachery and destruction.
In the elder days, before the roads broke and the sky seemed closer to the earth, there stood the city of Lethrien—an immaculate work of high elven design, rising in pale tiers along a river that curved like a deliberate brushstroke through the land. Every arch and avenue followed a principle. Every garden was measured, every tree pruned into intention. The elves of Lethrien believed that order was not merely preference, but virtue made visible. Their laws were few but absolute. Their calendars were mapped centuries in advance. Even their songs adhered to ancient structures, passed unaltered from one generation to the next. To deviate was to unravel; to unravel was to fall. Beyond the city’s boundaries stretched a forest long regarded as a stable constant—wild, but predictable. Its edges were patrolled, its deeper regions cataloged. Creatures lived there, certainly, but none that threatened the balance of Lethrien’s existence. Or so the elves believed.
The first signs were dismissed. Hunters reported strange tracks: not wolf, not man, but something that shifted between. Groves at the forest’s edge were found shredded—not consumed, not harvested, but destroyed. Trees torn apart without purpose. Birds fled the canopy in unnatural silence. The Council of Measures recorded these incidents, debated them, and assigned observers. Patterns were sought, hypotheses drafted. Nothing in their long history had prepared them for a force without pattern.
Then came the howling.
It began at dusk, a sound like laughter dragged across broken glass. The forest itself seemed to recoil from it. That night, the outer watchposts fell. By morning, the first refugees staggered into Lethrien’s lower districts—wounded, incoherent, speaking of creatures that walked upright yet moved like beasts, their limbs too long, their jaws too eager. They were called, in the records that followed, the kobold. But no term fully contained them. They did not invade as an army would. They spilled. They erupted from the forest in erratic surges, striking not for gain, nor territory, but for the act of ruin itself. Fields were trampled, not harvested. Wells were fouled. Homes were torn open and left in splinters, as though the act of breaking brought them satisfaction. When met with resistance, their violence sharpened. They did not merely kill—they lingered. They returned to the same places to undo what had been rebuilt, as if driven by a need to deny restoration itself. The elves responded as they always had: with structure. Defensive grids were established. Rotations of archers and mages were assigned precise intervals. Barriers were raised according to geometric principles designed to maximize coverage.
It did not matter.
The dog-men did not respect lines. They did not respond to deterrence. They learned nothing, yet adapted in ways that defied understanding. A wall would hold one night and be bypassed the next, not through strategy, but through sheer, chaotic persistence. Worse still, the forest advanced. Trees at the edge of Lethrien began to grow unchecked, roots cracking stone, branches reaching into avenues once kept pristine. It was as if the wood itself had abandoned its quiet agreement with the city, surging forward to accompany its feral inhabitants. Within the Council, dissent—once unthinkable—took root. Some argued for greater force, others for retreat to inner districts. But every decision required deliberation, every action adherence to established process. Time, once their greatest ally, became their enemy. The breaking point came not with a grand siege, but with a simple failure. A scheduled rotation of defenders did not occur. Messengers sent to correct the lapse were found torn apart. In the absence of that single, precise movement, a section of the city lay exposed—and the kobolds poured through. What followed was not a battle, but an unmaking. Order collapsed under the weight of unpredictability. Streets designed for symmetry became channels of panic. The songs ceased. The laws, though unchanged, became impossible to uphold. For the first time in their history, the elves of Lethrien faced a force that could not be reasoned with, predicted, or integrated into their system. And so, they did the unthinkable. They fled.
Under cover of what defenses remained, the surviving population gathered what they could—records, relics, fragments of their carefully maintained past—and fled southward, abandoning the city that had defined them. Lethrien did not fall in fire, nor was it conquered in the traditional sense. It was rendered incompatible with the nature of its inhabitants. In the years that followed, travelers spoke of a pale ruin swallowed by wild growth, where broken spires rose among tangled branches, and where, at dusk, the howling still echoed through the hollowed streets. Of the elves, it is said they never rebuilt as they once had. Their new settlements were looser, less certain. Their songs changed. Some say they learned resilience. Others say they lost something irretrievable—the belief that the world could be made to hold still. And in quiet moments, when the wind shifts just so, they remember the sound of something that could not be ordered, and the city that could not survive it.