Kobolds

"'Never trust a kobold with your money. I once lended one a pair of gold coins. Turns out they look at gold coins the same way we look at shortbread cookies.'" "-Overheard at a local marketplace"Beneath the surface of the Sheyan continent, deep down where the sun's light could never reach, an infinitely complex system of tunnels winds and courses through the land like veins through a living body. The Sheyan underground is a place often forgotten by the surface-dwellers, for it is little but dark caverns and sinkholes for most, but for others, it is home. One such sort of creature that would call this place home is one of Shey's stranger inhabitants: the kobolds.

These creatures have been given the name "Children of the Depths", and not without reason. At first glance, they carry a strong resemblance to human children - those in the middle teen years - but even just a second glance would reveal that they are anything but. On their heads, they carry odd and spiky keratin growths that look like something akin to stalagmites, dozens upon dozens of small dark spires the width of a finger, taking the place of what would have been hair. Their eyes are eerily glaring and unblinking with pupils twice or thrice the size of humans' to compensate for the lack of light, and the tips of their fingers become raking claws meant for digging through solid rock. The color of their skin seems to resemble lead, to let them blend in with the darkness of the Sheyan underground, and behind them, a long and naked tail grows, often compared to that of a rat. Their bones and joints are structured in such a manner that makes it easy for them to traverse on all fours, and the look of one scurrying through the shadows has caused no small amount of dread for unwitting miners and spelunkers. When encountering one in the depths of the Sheyan underground, the first thing one would see, would be their unsettling eyes that glint like glass, oftentimes in the light of one - or more - of their famous candles.

Although they may look rather frightening, kobolds are often peaceful in nature. They are not warlike or aggressive, nor even particularly territorial, but they are easily frightened, and will defend themselves when cornered. But in some parts of the world - the Mjaln mountains especially - they have even gone as far as to wander from their endless caverns and incorporate themselves into Mjaln society. Here, as well as a few other places across the Sheyan continent, they are mostly found in cliques of five to twenty and are rarely regarded as anything more than street urchins, and put on the same social level as stray dogs. Some are engaged in unsavory ordeals like burglary or con-artistry, but others try to more actively engage with the society they find themselves surrounded by. Particularly, they are known for having unprecedented keen hands at jewel-crafting.

Provided they don't eat the jewelry.

Biology
A kobold's anatomy is much more than what appears at first glance. One of the most remarkable things about the kobolds is their diet, for they are the only known species throughout Shey that does not eat nutritious foods like vegetables or meat, but prefer the taste and crunch of rocks, metals, and crystals instead. It is not entirely certain why the kobolds have stomachs capable of somehow drawing nutrients from minerals like these, but certain wise folk claim that it was a biological necessity if they were to survive down there in the depths where nothing grows aside from mushrooms. What is quite certain, however, is that this rocky diet contributes to a skeleton that has proven more durable than even steel; their flesh will tear and their blood will flow, but if injured, their bones will essentially never break. When living underground, this has proven an invaluable asset, as it allows them to survive a boulder being dropped on them, or falling from dizzying heights, of which there are many, down there in the ravine-filled depths.

Secondly, their method of reproduction seems something less akin to animals, and more akin to mushrooms. Rather than mate and breed in a traditional fashion, a kobold is born from a spore. This spore stems from those odd stalagmite-like growths that sprout from the tops of their heads. When a kobold dies, these growths slowly turn to dust, and every dust particle will be carried away somewhere, until it finds sufficiently soft dirt where it plants itself and grows. After a few months' duration, a pod will have formed, and from this pod, a newly born kobold will soon emerge.

A newborn kobold and one at the end of their life-span are almost indistinguishable. They do not grow old in the same fashion as other humanoids would, but retain the same child-like appearance throughout their entire life - which is rather short, at an average maximum of fifty years. Instead, they eventually just grow weak and die, this process happening over a surprisingly short period of time: from one year to the other, a kobold may go from being at its prime to the brink of death.

Needless to say, this strikingly unconventional biology has also shaped kobold society into something much different than what is usually seen on the surface. If 'society' is even a word that can describe what goes on down there in the caves.

Sociology
Kobolds, unlike most humanoids, do not shape states, cities, or even basic societies. They do not actively seek other kobolds to create a 'nation' of any sort, and have over the years undergone such a wild diaspora that they are to be found in the underground of any given part of the Sheyan continent. The only resemblance of a society, are the 'families' that unite up to twenty of them, bound together by the same mother or father whose spores they were born from. These families are often quite tight-knit and have little to no interaction with other kobold families, even if they run into them while traversing the underground tunnels.

However, aside from sharing a somewhat common language, there is another exception to their reclusiveness: candles. All kobolds share a tendency to make candles out of their own earwax and place them throughout the vast underground tunnels to show to other kobolds, regardless of family, that these parts of the underground are safe to traverse - consequently, if it is discovered that certain parts are not safe any longer, kobolds will remove or snuff out the candles. If left untouched, however, the candles will continue burning for as long as an entire year. There are some places throughout the tunnel systems that are known as 'junctions', meeting places for all kobold kind, which are often decorated to the bursting point with candles. These junctions are used as trading spots between kobolds, or forums to discuss what is going on in the underground, whether there are new predators to beware of, or the likes. But most kobold families do not go to these junctions more than once or twice a year.

Although the kobold society, being as diasporatic and fragmented as it is, generally does not have any real society, and thereby no hierarchies, there are certain kobolds that are universally respected among all kobold kind: the geomancers. While every kobold has an affinity and expansive knowledge of the earth they live and dig in, only the geomancers have learned how to manipulate them with striking finesse - and power. They are widely respected not only for their skills in combat, but also because they are the kobold equivalent of 'farmers'. With rocks, stones, and crystals being the only things that kobolds eat, geomancers' ability to continually create new stone is of extreme importance for all kobolds, lest they risk having eaten the world hollow. Geomancers therefore, once they have mastered the art of manipulating the stones and metals around them, wander (mostly alone, but occasionally with other geomancers) the tunnels and create new minerals wherever they walk. Whenever they arrive at junctions, they are often given a splendorous welcome as thanks for their contribution to the survival of the kobold race.

Religion
Kobold religion, like their society, is a fragmented one. While they are technically monotheistic, they are simultaneously polytheistic, because of how countless different sections of the kobold society revere different gods than other sections. So what are these gods? Not gods at all, in fact, or at least not in the way traditionally viewed. While most kobolds are well aware that there are some very powerful beings that control all the many aspects of the natural world, kobolds worship none of them, but have instead turned their reverence to something else: music and storytelling.

Kobold society can generally be considered monetheistic because of their worship of this vague and everchanging concept known as 'The Good Song'. The Good Song is a mythical and legendary piece of musical storytelling that is said to be sung by a kobold one day, and once it has, all of kobold kind will be united under its glory. For kobolds believe that songs and stories have an intrinsic power of unification, as they awaken something deep in the Hearts of every kobold, something that they can share in and connect through. The bringers of these songs - what one might, at a lack of a better word, consider the equivalent of a priest or prophet - are known as Rhapsodes, who have trained to master the art of song in hopes of being the one Rhapsode that brings about The Good Song.

Once every decade, kobolds from all across Shey gather in the very center of the continent, just underneath the Swamp of Nox, known to them as the Heart of the World. Here, a collossal underground hall makes space for every single kobold alive, where Rhapsodes will then compete with one another in winning the favor of the kobolds around them, and bring about The Good Song. But since all of kobold kind has not yet been unified, evidently one must conclude that The Good Song has not been sung yet.

Most kobolds would disagree, however. For the vast majority of all kobolds happen to believe that The Good Song has already been sung - and they have heard it with their own ears - and all other kobolds simply cannot see (hear) The Good Song right before their eyes (ears). In their fragmented reverence of The Good Song, kobolds will offer prayers to this song that they worship by gathering their family around a candle and each member reciting part of this song that they revere, convinced that they are now reciting the one and only Good Song. In the tunnels and caverns beneath surface, it is not uncommon to find the recitations of some Kobold families' favored story engraved upon the walls, often candlelit, so that even when the family is not there to tell the tale, others may still bask in its magnificence. If a kobold happens to be alone, this kobold will also offer some prayer to a candle on their own, but it is often a sad sight to behold.

History
Ironically, while the kobolds have a distinct child-like appearance, they are arguable the oldest race in all of Shey - indeed, older than even the humans. For the humans, in the year of 623, were all wiped out by the gods, after the hubris of the Gaun Eil. The kobolds, deep down in their caves and tunnels, were not.

However, it is difficult to precisely date the origin or creation of the kobolds, and thus difficult to tell exactly how old they are as a species. But there is a theory of their origin that holds much credence. According to old stone tablets found across the ruins of a forgotten epoch, some humans during the Age of Dragons followed cults that worshipped neither gods nor dragons, but 'the depths' - that is to say, the vast underground reaches. Some particularly zealous followers of this cult were said to have sacrified their children to this nebulous 'god' by lowering them down into the deepest sinkhole or cavern they could find. No one knows for certain what exactly happened to these sacrified children, but the theory here claims that the children - somehow - changed and became what the world now knows as kobolds.

For the most of history, kobolds have kept to their underground tunnels and caverns, living fragmented lives without any great movements to be told of - perhaps except for the establishment of their religion and the promise of the coming of a Rhapsode who will sing The Good Song. But soon after the Rebirth of Man, a slumbering enemy forced the kobolds to the surface: the Chthonics. Great demonic monstrosities that slaughtered the kobolds in great numbers, and could only be fought by the rare occasion of unified kobolds alongside the strongest geomancers alive. But though they fought valiantly for their underground homes, they soon appeared on the surface once more. They did this in two places: The Dragonlands and The Mjaln Mountains.

The Mjaln of this age were quite welcoming toward the kobolds. The Mjaln were still in the process of taking the mountains from the trolls, and found allies with the kobolds, who were also facing hardships with the trolls. That being said, the trolls did at one point offer an alliance against the Mjaln, but the kobolds of that area denied it, after they found that the trolls had no singing skills at all - the Mjaln skjalds, however, proved absolutely delightful, and the kobolds found friends immediately. Ever since, the Mjaln and kobolds have found hospitality in one another's cities or caves, and oftentimes trade jewelry for weapons or cloth for candles.

In the early years of their emergence in the Dragonlands, the kobolds were on easy terms with the humans of that region as well. They did not bother the archaeologists much, who found help from the kobolds in discovering ancient draconic fossils, but as the years progressed and steam engines entered the fray in the Dragonlands, tension rose. The miners and mining companies of that time did not enjoy seeing their metals being literally eaten by the kobolds, and began to evict them from their own tunnels, and fill them with their machines. In the height of these tensions, thorough exterminations against the kobols were set in motion, and it caught the attention of geomancers from even the farthest regions. The backlash was monumental. The battle that insued between the miners and the geomancers was a bloody conflict that ended in terrible losses on both sides, but the kobolds claimed a pyrrhic victory. They reclaimed their tunnels, and since then, human miners have been careful not to enter kobold territory, in fear of angering a species they now know not to anger.

Language
Given that the Kobolds do not have any centralized government to control a "standard" tongue, and given that Kobolds spread across practically all of Shey through their tunnels, the language they speak is widely diverse and full of dialects whose speakers often do not understand each other at all. However, even between the most far-flung Kobold dialects, there are still similarities that bind the language together. Under this wide umbrella, all Kobolds are said to speak a single language: Babayúta.

Phonotactics
The phonotactic structure of Babayúta is exceedingly simple. Throughout the entire language, every syllable must contain a single consonant and a single vowel. Consonant-clusters like /sk/, /skr/, /bl/, and so on are all prohibited. When Kobolds encounter these consonant-clusters in other languages, they will often fill them out with vowels (what vowel is inserted depends on the dialect), such as /sakə/, /sakəru/, and so on.

Further, all Babayúta words contain stress on the third-to-last syllable. Words like "eletobánewa" are legal, while "eletóbanewa" are not. This stress may be anywhere between the third-to-last and the last syllable, and when inflectional markers or stressless words follow, the stress will move further towards the right to ensure that there are never more than two unstressed syllables to the right of the stress. This rule does not apply when long words with a stress follow afterwards. Thus, sentences like "eletobanewá todo" force the stress on "eletobánewa" to move two steps to the right, while in sentences like "eletobánewa agonetólo" do not force the stress marker to move.