Jesron, Professional Hugbear

So kobolds first appear in Germanic folklore as domestic spirits. Kobolds are also considered mine spirits, causing cave-ins and tapping on things in the dark to scare miners

Think the elves from The Elves and the Shoemaker, but bastards

This association with mines and caves and bastardy gets them into the world of tabletop RPGs when Gary Gygax adds them to his fantasy supplement of Chainmail. Kobolds are later added to Dungeons & Dragons as a subterranean race of monsters

Here’s the important thing: due to a throwaway line in the rulebooks about the kobolds having doglike voices, the first artist to depict a D&D kobold gave it a dog nose

This is the beginning point in the divergent evolution

Kobolds in western TTRPG will notoriously become more and more reptilian with each generation, leaning on the interpretation of “chihuahua dragons,” but it’s at this time, heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons, that the video game series Wizardry begins

They brought the dog kobolds with them

Wizardry becomes extremely popular in Japan, inspiring JRPG series like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy as well as manga series like Dungeon Meshi. And while in the west the kobold has become increasingly reptilian with each edition, the Japanese kobold has become increasingly canine

And this is why in the greater fantasy genre, kobolds represent everything from

To

To

And