Original

“These small, evil doglike humanoids usually live underground in clans of 10 to 60 members. They have scaly, rust-brown skin no hair. They have well-developed infravision with a 90′ range. They prefer to attack by ambush.”
~ Rules Cyclopedia, page 187

“The hide of kobolds runs from very dark rusty brown to a rusty black. They have no hair. Their eyes are reddish and their small horns are tan to white. They favor red or orange garb. Kobolds live for up to 135 years.”
~ Monster Manual (1979), page 57

“Barely clearing three feet in height, kobolds have scaly hides that range from very dark rusty brown to a rusty black. They smell like a cross between damp dogs and stagnant water. Their eyes glow like a bright red spark and they have two small horns ranging from tan to white. Because of the kobolds’ fondness for
wearing raggedy garb of red and orange, their non-prehensile rat-like tails and their language (which sounds like small dogs yap-ping), these fell creatures are often not taken seriously by humans. This is often a fatal mistake, for what they lack in size and strength they make up in ferocity and tenacity.”
~ Monster Compendium (1989)

These are the descriptions of Kobolds that existed when Mystara was a thing. Kobolds were not dragon kin, they were little goblinoids that looked like a hairless pit-bull stood up and decided to walk on 2 legs. These are the Kobolds of the Broken lands.

The Republic of Kol,

Kobolds actually have their own “nation” in the Broken lands. Kol is located in the south central Broken Lands, east of the Streel River. Citizens of Kol are mostly Kobold, but there are few “lesser citizens” in the way of orcs and gnolls. These lesser citizens do not get all the rights and privileges of a full citizen.

Kol is ruled by High Doge Kol: Constantin Diocletius, the Supreme Court Judge, “He Who Judges All Matters of State” and his Premier, General Zar.

Upper & Lower Kol

Kol is divided into 2 parts, Upper Kol (on the surface), and Lower Kol (underground). Upper Kol is one of the larger above ground states in the Broken lands, and covers a forest, some hills and the Streel River. The Hills area is covered with thorns, high bushes, geysers and tar pits.

Lower Kol, however, is 1,500 feet below the surface. It houses the Captial Stronghold “Kol-Khat” (Which is carved into a huge stalagtite hanging from the roof of the cave. The only access to this stronghold is through counter-weight elevators, that often break down.

Lower Kol also has two camp-towns, Kol-Slah (to the North), and Kol-Tarkee (to the south). The Kobolds there feed off of Fungus, fungal fruit, and purple worm meat.

Faith: Repectable, Tax-paying kobolds worship the Shining One, the legendary kobold Immortal Hero in glowing armor. His symbol is a horned helm.

Player Character Kobolds: (BECMI / Old School)

Ability Score Adjustments: Kobolds receive, a -4 to Strength, but a +3 to Dexterity. No Score can go below 3, or above 18, any that do after adjustments, will be adjusted to either 3, or 18 respectively.

Natural Armor: Kobolds Begin with a natural AC of 7 due to Tough hides.

Infravision: Kobolds gain infravision up to 90 feet range in the dark.

Size: Kobolds start at 3 feet tall, add 1d4 inches to your kobold.

Subraces: Kobold Subraces only affect their appearance, nothing else.
Mountain: Mountain Kobolds, are Militaristic, they have Rusty brown scales, and yellow eyes. They often wear Mismatched piece-meal armor. Their armor is often painted bright colors as tribal markings. Mountain Kobolds are very Militaristic and use tactics and numbers to overwhelm an enemy.
Forest: Actually, found in Forests and hills. Forest Kobolds are more chaotic and free loving than their Mountain relatives. Forest Kobolds have scales the color Black, Dark Blue, Dark Green, or a combination of the three. They grown white hair often letting it grow into manes. Forest Kobolds often camouflage their armor, and prefer ambush to military tactics.
Nomadic: Nomadic Kobolds often live outside the broken lands in the barbarian or natural communities like the Atruaghin clans plateau. Nomadic Kobolds reproduce the fastest. Since their have the freest lifestyles, away from the dangers of the Broken Lands. Nomadic Kobolds, are neither sneaky, nor militaristic, and prefer to just overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers. They have Dark Grey, scales with muddy brown splotches. They often wear war paint, and colorful plumes on their heads to indicate their tribes.

Title	Level	XP	Hit Dice
Tribesman	Normal Monster	0	1d4
Scout	1	500	2d4
Marauder	2	1,000	3d4
Raider	3	2,000	4d4
Plunderer	4	4,000	5d4
Ravager	5	8,000	6d4
Destructor	6	16,000	7d4
Devastator	7	30,000	8d4
Conqueror	8	60,000	9d4
Conqueror	9	120,000*	+2hp**

* +100,000XP for every level afterwards.
** +2hp for every level afterwards, no Constitution modifier.

Shamans / Wicca

Kobolds may be Shamans or Wiccas

Player Character Kobolds: (5E)

Creature Type. You are a Humanoid.
Ability Score Increase. Your Strength Score decreases by 4, but your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Age: A kobold reaches adulthood at the age of 20 and generally lives into the middle of his or her
second century.
Alignment: Kobolds are often Chaotic in alignment.
Size. You are Small.
Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness only as shades of gray.
Tail: You can make unarmed strikes with your tail. When you hit with it, the strike deals 1d6 + your Strength modifier bludgeoning damage, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike.
Kobold Nimbleness: You can move through the
space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.

Subraces:

Mountain Kobolds: Mountain Kobolds, are Militaristic, they have Rusty brown scales, and yellow eyes. They often wear Mismatched piece-meal armor. Their armor is often painted bright colors as tribal markings. Mountain Kobolds are very Militaristic and use tactics and numbers to overwhelm an enemy.
Pack Tactics: Mountain Kobolds have advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the kobold’s allies is within 5 feet of the target, and their ally is not incapacitated.

Forest Kobolds: Actually, found in Forests and hills. Forest Kobolds are more chaotic and free loving than their Mountain relatives. Forest Kobolds have scales the color Black, Dark Blue, Dark Green, or a combination of the three. They grown white hair often letting it grow into manes. Forest Kobolds often camouflage their armor, and prefer ambush to military tactics.
Naturally Stealthy. You can attempt to hide even when you are obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than you.

Nomadic: Nomadic Kobolds often live outside the broken lands in the barbarian or natural communities like the Atruaghin clans plateau. Nomadic Kobolds reproduce the fastest. Since their have the freest lifestyles, away from the dangers of the Broken Lands. Nomadic Kobolds, are neither sneaky, nor militaristic, and prefer to just overwhelm the enemy with sheer numbers. They have Dark Grey, scales with muddy brown splotches. They often wear war paint, and colorful plumes on their heads to indicate their tribes.
Fleet of Foot. Your base walking speed increases to 35 feet.

Kobold picture from the AD&D Monstrous Compendium, 1989. by Zeb Cook. Art by Jim Holloway. (Rest in Peace)
Maps by Thorin. (Atlas of Mystara Project)

Introduction.

One of the things to remember about Mystara is that it is not a campaign setting. I know many people will argue over that comment, but hear me out. Mystara is a campaign world, within it are many, many campaign settings for TTRPGs like Basic D&D (Where it gained popularity), AD&D (which it kinda flopped in), and others.

As a world, you can edit or add things you wish to have, and I do. While running my weekly game, I came across the “Old Known World” files from Moldvay & Schick. These are the files for which they used to play OD&D with when Moldvay was tasked with making a setting for the new BX version of D&D. They include a lot of races they tossed into their setting because they loved reading. Nowadays, you would call it “Homebrewing,” but back in the 1980s and before, the entire game was homebrewing, so nobody batted an eye at this. Unfortunately, there were a few races that at the time were still under copywrite to their owners. (now have been moved to Public domain.)

When my players traveled back in time to before Blackmoor, they discovered a crashed spaceship called “Denathix” (which I stole the name from Patrick Wetmore’s Anomalous Subsurface Environment Setting). It was a convenient name at the time, and I said that to spell the name of the ship in its native language looked a lot like the word “Coot” (see below). as the characters were looking for the Egg of Coot.

They translated it to mean “Buzzard.” which was a fun little thing. Anyways, after my team fixed time (They royally screwed it up and spent a year repairing the damage). I figured I would keep the city around as a partner to Serraine the flying city. and since I had introduced a lot of the races from “Old Known World” in that city I would start to put together a series of articles, explaining their role in the modern World, and the races as Player races for 5E and BECMI (As I do).

Again I draw inspiration from the following sources: