Heroes of the Borderlands, Part 2

2.  More encounters for role-playing.  For example, Abraham Lincoln once said, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”

In the original German folklore, “A kobold is a general or generic name for the household spirit (hausgeist) in German folklore. It may invisibly make noises (i.e., be a poltergeist), or helpfully perform kitchen chores or stable work. But it can be a prankster as well. It may expect a bribe or offering of milk, etc. for its efforts or good behavior. When mistreated (cf. fig. right), its reprisal can be utterly cruel.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobold

My kobolds have good behavior when treated well, or have bad behavior when mistreated.  Because, if kobolds are always evil no matter how they are treated; they become targets for experience point farming.  This in turn quickly makes encounters with kobolds repetitive and boring.

Kobolds are related to dragons and therefore have a large amount of respect for dragons and those related to dragons, such as my player character dragonborn.

In my campaign, my party’s persuasive bard asked the Kobold Chieftain if following the creed of Chaos was working out for himself and his tribe.  After talking for a few minutes, this Chieftain admitted that his followers, most of them blood relatives, are abused, robbed, or murdered and sometimes sacrificed on the altar located in the Chapel of Evil Chaos by the more bloodthirsty species of the Caves of Chaos.

My bard was able to persuade the Kobold Chieftain that he and his tribal members would live better lives, by taking up the creed of Law.  That his people would be eat healthier food, wear better clothing, live in better homes, and be safer from harm, while creating much needed farms around the Keep; then to continue to follow the creed of Chaos, being robbed and murdered for their misplaced allegiance.  As our group’s Dungeon Master, I found the bard’s player talk was persuasive; the bard didn’t need a dice roll, as his words alone were sufficient to persuade the Kobold Chieftain.

With the Castellan’s assistance, my player characters bought many expensive tools and a cartload of different seeds, as well as building underground homes for the rehabilitated Kobolds to create fruitful farms around the Keep.  By growing several types of crops, caring for farm animals for meat, as well as fishing the river for fish these Kobolds made both themselves and the Keep inhabitants more food secure.

Note:  I give the same amount of experience points when my player characters win over their enemies with persuasion, as I do when they defeat their enemies with combat.

Note:  I like kobolds that are cousins to Chromatic dragons.  This allows first level player characters to encounter a type of dragon species.  Also, I like that kobolds are no longer smaller versions of gnolls.