A fresh look at Kobolds for RPG classic

In no way can I say I am a fan of D&D 5th edition. It is a homogenized creation to appease the legion of gamers who want to do it all, cast spells, carry the great sword, and do it regardless of race and its apparent limitations.

You can kit characters so they feel more like a group of clones rather than a diverse group coming together for adventure.

So when I get my hands on a supplement for D&D 5E, I am looking to see how it might wedge into an earlier incarnation of D&D when diversity and uniqueness reigned based on class and race.

That was why I was intrigued initially by The Kobolds of Frostwind Forest by Canadian Mark Charke, as it is written with 3rd edition in mind – a huge win for me.

Charke “has been writing since the early 90s. He has published over 70 works including 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th Edition and Vampire the Masquerade manuals, several novels and a LARP card game,” noted his Kickstarter bio.

The writing pedigree suggests this one should be good, and that it offers up a rather different view of Kobolds was exciting.

Among the list of fairly standard RPG fantasy races Kobolds have typically been at the bottom of the list – a minor annoyance to a low level adventuring group perhaps, but from there they might be offered up as cannon fodder as a baddie escapes at some point, but otherwise you won’t see them offered up often by the Dungeon Master.

Of course one has to expect not every Kobold is an evil little coward with a pointy stick – or at least that is how Charke looks at the race.

Canadian creator 

In The Kobolds of Frostwind Forest Charke simply builds a broader vision of the race – one where the range of the good, the bad and the neutral of a more race than most associate with ‘mere Kobolds’.

Again I must turn to the Kickstarter campaign for this tome as it paints a fine picture of Charke’s effort.

“This is a story about the underdogs, the little race that has long served not as the villains but rather the pushed aside annoying minions of villains,” the campaign page details. “I suppose they haven't gotten that much better, but they are trying. In Frostwind Forest, the Kobolds have become something a little more, guided and influenced by forces beyond them and having a teacher to elevate them, they may actually become a threat in their own right. Protected by their resistance to cold, the Kobolds are hidden in the Frostwind Forest where their numbers and their might is growing. They aren't all good. Not even most of them are good. The important thing is that some of them are good and they are trying.”

Now simply slapping a more varied array of alignments on Kobolds would not in itself been worth a great deal. In an RPG alignment typically comes from how a player portrays a character through their actions anyway.

But ‘Frostwind’ goes further with a bit of everything to make Kobolds worth another look – “new spells, new races, new prestige classes, mutations, maggot therapy rules, yes you read that right and a story with many different personalities all around the forest region with their own motives and capabilities,” details the KS campaign.

There is world building here too, taking us inside this unique realm of Kobolds, with the forest being home to “three dragons, a dryad venerated by the kobolds, powerful treants, giants and even human explorers.”

There is just enough here to make one want to either roll up a Kobold from the ‘forest’ and take them adventuring, or as a GM send a party into the forest realm and have a party dealing with the mind twist that all Kobolds are not the same.

This is the kind of D&D supplement that truly enhances the game, without simply tossing all into a blender and pouring out glassfuls of ‘sameness’.