Kobold

The goblin answer to the Gnome, and the most numerous and industrious race of the lot. Kobolds live miles beneath the surface in tunnel-cities they cut themselves, can taste the difference between one ore and another, and shape metal the way a gnome shapes stone.

Nearly every ingot in the Eternal City passed through kobold hands first, bought for a pittance through Faerie middlemen who take great care never to mention the source.

Appearance

Small, dark-scaled, and heavily built through the shoulders, with eyes suited to total darkness and a nose that does most of the work. Kobold metallurgy is largely a matter of smell and taste; a master smelter can identify a vein's composition by licking the rock.

Attuned Magic

Metal. A nascent kobold can sense ore through stone and judge a metal's purity by touch. A powerful one can draw metal out of raw rock without heat, work an alloy cold, and find a fault in a finished blade from across a room. The Leprechauns buy kobold stock in preference to their own and do not put this in writing.

Society

Dense, industrious, and organized around the works: a tunnel-city is a single enormous enterprise with everyone in it holding a share. Kobolds keep meticulous records, which is unusual in the Wilds and inconvenient for everyone who has ever tried to underpay them.

Relations

At their upper reaches the Deepworks run into the Gnomish Deep Hollows, and the two peoples have been trading, intermarrying by metamorphosis, and lying to their respective authorities about it for a very long time. It is the oldest and warmest relationship across the Faerie–Goblin line, and neither crown has been told.