Kobold Rogue Background (fairly long) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Kobold Rogue Background (fairly long) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
offcenterideas
06-12-06, 02:51 AM I was working on a background for a Kobold Rogue I've been wanting to play for months and I wanted to get some input on what I've gotten so far.

Zeike "Rasvym Vrak", formerly of the Copper Eye clan, was the last of twenty six eggs to hatch that season, and has always been treated as the runt of his litter. As he grew up, though, he proved to be quite brilliant and a remarkably quick learner. He spent most of his youth apprenticing as an accountant and a mine foreman.
At the age of 11, his clan had outgrown their current residence and had decided to send out a several groups of scouts to find a suitable location to set up a new clan. Zeike was chosen to lead one of these groups.
Zeike and his band of scouts traveled for three weeks without finding any even remotely decent locations, when they were jumped by a goblin raiding party. After a long vicious battle, Zeike and what remained of his scouts were taken captive. The Black Knife Tribe, as the goblins called themselves, interrogated them for many days trying to find the location of the Copper Eye's secret vault.
Then on one very dark night, Zeike made a break for the treeline. He ran for his life, and after running for many miles, he felt that he was safe from them. He found himself at the entrance to a very large cave. Wandering deeper and deeper into the cave he found himself standing at the base of a massive pile of coins. The hoard had to have been large enough to "crush a bulette". He soon passed out from exhaustion right there on the coins.
The next day, Zeike woke up with a start from a giant snout nudging him and laughing. Zeike opened his eyes and nearly fainted from the sight of a gargantuan Copper dragon standing over him. It spoke to him, "Hello there, Rasvym Vrak... little Treasure Child. Glad you found my bed as comfortable as I do."

That's as far as I've gotten in writing, but basically he studies under the as yet unnamed dragon for a month or so, then ventures off on his mission to found a new kobold tribe.

The dragon and Zeike are friends still, but she (the Copper dragon) won't just come and save him. However he is always welcome back to the lair and usually refering to it as "home".

Any input would be nice. BTW he's level 1, so another question is if that background gives too much power to him. Though I can't imagine how having a "home" to go back to makes him all that powerful, except for the near guaranteed safety he has there.
Weirgreif
06-14-06, 05:42 AM From a story point of view, that 'home' is easy to drop into a session. It's small, self-contained, and neither the players or characters will go like "Hey, why hasn't anything happened there except for the sudden vampire infestation?". It also provides an out for a DM mistake, because the dragon can act as a sudden rescue team. The kobold has no special ability to order that dragon around, so I as a DM wouldn't worry about the personal power thing.

How compatible is the goal of starting a new tribe with the rest of your group? It could easily spiral outwards and consume more than its share of play-time. If the party wants to stick to a specific area it ought to be less of a problem, but keep in mind that the other players shouldn't have to wait around (or do the pizza run) while you go recruiting on your lonesome.

Copper eyes: :twocents: *grin*
offcenterideas
06-14-06, 02:47 PM As for the starting a new tribe thing, I think it will mostly stay in the background of whatever game I'd get to throw him in. I think he's gonna take leadership at level 6 or so, and just put his new cohort (has to be another kobold) in charge of the tribe while he's off adventuring. He'd send messages home every so often to make sure everything is going fine, if not I'm sure that his dragon friend can keep them in line a little, maybe. Otherwise I'm just going to treat the tribe as a business as per the DMGII since it IS a mining tribe. So most of the tribe stuff will stay as metagaming away from the table, unless the DM wants to use it all in an adventure.

I didn't catch that "Copper Eyes - Two Cents" connection until you pointed it out.

BTW thanks for the input.
Weirgreif
06-17-06, 02:07 AM The cohort clearly needs to be a bard. For so many reasons. o/` mine mine mine the shiny gold vein! o/`

I'd be interested in hearing how the mining-company thing works out. Usually my attention span is too short to remember things like that, so three days later I'm like "Oh yeah! There were three things I wanted to do last week!" and am sad. Otherwise, yay for PHB2. It's such a good book.

Sometimes I'm too clever for anyone's good. *eyeshift*
Shar_the_Black
06-17-06, 11:56 PM Hey, I'm making a kobold rogue myself for a Sandstorm campaign, but I'm terrible at comming up with names, got any suggestions?

Back on topic: That's some nice stuff written up
offcenterideas
06-18-06, 01:42 AM The way I think of kobold tribes (from reading RotD) kobolds communally raise young and with their high rate of birth, I thought it would fit to have a simple naming system. Thus first one hatched in the tribe in any given year would have an "A" name, next would be a "B" name (or whatever is next in Draconic, for simplicity's sake I use the standard alphabet) on down the list (kinda like naming hurricanes). Thus being the last of 26 eggs to hatch, he got named Zeike. And due to the lack of formal pairs of parents in kobold society, they just use their birth name and tribe to identify themselves.

Since kobolds speak Draconic, I went ahead and used the short Draconic dictionary in Races of the Dragon to come up with his nickname. Rasvym Vrak literally means Treasure Child (sleeping on the mound of coins).

Of course, this is just my personal opinion on how kobolds are named, but it seems to work fairly well for now. At some point I'm gonna check for a formal Draconic alphabet and work from there, but it's not that big of a deal for me.
Shar_the_Black
06-18-06, 09:45 AM Thanks offcenterideas, I never thought about how they'd name their offspring but the A-Z thing is a good idea. I like the "Rasvym Vrak" name, I think I'll go with that.
offcenterideas
06-18-06, 03:55 PM Hey, with how fast kobolds reproduce, I'm sure they'd find a more streamlined way of naming the young, don't you think? Like I said above, I'd love to use the Draconic alphabet instead for extra flavor, but I haven't found it yet.

If people really want, kobolds would probably treat "earlier letter" people better than the "later letter" people (like treating Bob better than Tom) simply because they're used to their own naming system in which kobolds believe that the earlier you hatch/born in the year the stronger of a person you are. Really builds off the term "Alpha male", huh?

Then again, this is just my ideas and insight on how Kobold society works.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
offcenterideas 06-12-06, 02:51 AM	I was working on a background for a Kobold Rogue I've been wanting to play for months and I wanted to get some input on what I've gotten so far. Zeike "Rasvym Vrak", formerly of the Copper Eye clan, was the last of twenty six eggs to hatch that season, and has always been treated as the runt of his litter. As he grew up, though, he proved to be quite brilliant and a remarkably quick learner. He spent most of his youth apprenticing as an accountant and a mine foreman. At the age of 11, his clan had outgrown their current residence and had decided to send out a several groups of scouts to find a suitable location to set up a new clan. Zeike was chosen to lead one of these groups. Zeike and his band of scouts traveled for three weeks without finding any even remotely decent locations, when they were jumped by a goblin raiding party. After a long vicious battle, Zeike and what remained of his scouts were taken captive. The Black Knife Tribe, as the goblins called themselves, interrogated them for many days trying to find the location of the Copper Eye's secret vault. Then on one very dark night, Zeike made a break for the treeline. He ran for his life, and after running for many miles, he felt that he was safe from them. He found himself at the entrance to a very large cave. Wandering deeper and deeper into the cave he found himself standing at the base of a massive pile of coins. The hoard had to have been large enough to "crush a bulette". He soon passed out from exhaustion right there on the coins. The next day, Zeike woke up with a start from a giant snout nudging him and laughing. Zeike opened his eyes and nearly fainted from the sight of a gargantuan Copper dragon standing over him. It spoke to him, "Hello there, Rasvym Vrak... little Treasure Child. Glad you found my bed as comfortable as I do." That's as far as I've gotten in writing, but basically he studies under the as yet unnamed dragon for a month or so, then ventures off on his mission to found a new kobold tribe. The dragon and Zeike are friends still, but she (the Copper dragon) won't just come and save him. However he is always welcome back to the lair and usually refering to it as "home". Any input would be nice. BTW he's level 1, so another question is if that background gives too much power to him. Though I can't imagine how having a "home" to go back to makes him all that powerful, except for the near guaranteed safety he has there.
Weirgreif 06-14-06, 05:42 AM	From a story point of view, that 'home' is easy to drop into a session. It's small, self-contained, and neither the players or characters will go like "Hey, why hasn't anything happened there except for the sudden vampire infestation?". It also provides an out for a DM mistake, because the dragon can act as a sudden rescue team. The kobold has no special ability to order that dragon around, so I as a DM wouldn't worry about the personal power thing. How compatible is the goal of starting a new tribe with the rest of your group? It could easily spiral outwards and consume more than its share of play-time. If the party wants to stick to a specific area it ought to be less of a problem, but keep in mind that the other players shouldn't have to wait around (or do the pizza run) while you go recruiting on your lonesome. Copper eyes: :twocents: grin
offcenterideas 06-14-06, 02:47 PM	As for the starting a new tribe thing, I think it will mostly stay in the background of whatever game I'd get to throw him in. I think he's gonna take leadership at level 6 or so, and just put his new cohort (has to be another kobold) in charge of the tribe while he's off adventuring. He'd send messages home every so often to make sure everything is going fine, if not I'm sure that his dragon friend can keep them in line a little, maybe. Otherwise I'm just going to treat the tribe as a business as per the DMGII since it IS a mining tribe. So most of the tribe stuff will stay as metagaming away from the table, unless the DM wants to use it all in an adventure. I didn't catch that "Copper Eyes - Two Cents" connection until you pointed it out. BTW thanks for the input.
Weirgreif 06-17-06, 02:07 AM	The cohort clearly needs to be a bard. For so many reasons. o/` mine mine mine the shiny gold vein! o/` I'd be interested in hearing how the mining-company thing works out. Usually my attention span is too short to remember things like that, so three days later I'm like "Oh yeah! There were three things I wanted to do last week!" and am sad. Otherwise, yay for PHB2. It's such a good book. Sometimes I'm too clever for anyone's good. eyeshift
Shar_the_Black 06-17-06, 11:56 PM	Hey, I'm making a kobold rogue myself for a Sandstorm campaign, but I'm terrible at comming up with names, got any suggestions? Back on topic: That's some nice stuff written up
offcenterideas 06-18-06, 01:42 AM	The way I think of kobold tribes (from reading RotD) kobolds communally raise young and with their high rate of birth, I thought it would fit to have a simple naming system. Thus first one hatched in the tribe in any given year would have an "A" name, next would be a "B" name (or whatever is next in Draconic, for simplicity's sake I use the standard alphabet) on down the list (kinda like naming hurricanes). Thus being the last of 26 eggs to hatch, he got named Zeike. And due to the lack of formal pairs of parents in kobold society, they just use their birth name and tribe to identify themselves. Since kobolds speak Draconic, I went ahead and used the short Draconic dictionary in Races of the Dragon to come up with his nickname. Rasvym Vrak literally means Treasure Child (sleeping on the mound of coins). Of course, this is just my personal opinion on how kobolds are named, but it seems to work fairly well for now. At some point I'm gonna check for a formal Draconic alphabet and work from there, but it's not that big of a deal for me.
Shar_the_Black 06-18-06, 09:45 AM	Thanks offcenterideas, I never thought about how they'd name their offspring but the A-Z thing is a good idea. I like the "Rasvym Vrak" name, I think I'll go with that.
offcenterideas 06-18-06, 03:55 PM	Hey, with how fast kobolds reproduce, I'm sure they'd find a more streamlined way of naming the young, don't you think? Like I said above, I'd love to use the Draconic alphabet instead for extra flavor, but I haven't found it yet. If people really want, kobolds would probably treat "earlier letter" people better than the "later letter" people (like treating Bob better than Tom) simply because they're used to their own naming system in which kobolds believe that the earlier you hatch/born in the year the stronger of a person you are. Really builds off the term "Alpha male", huh? Then again, this is just my ideas and insight on how Kobold society works.