Kobold for Contest

Kobold for Shabazik race making contest

Physical

Physical form
Kobolds physically resemble Dwarves in that they are short with stocky builds.
General height is 4-5 feet tall but the weight can be surprisingly heavy going from a light 100 pounds to nearly 1,000.
They generally have almost no body hair.
The skin is pale in color and  never tan just burn from too much sunlight if exposed for long periods.
The eyes have very large pupils leaving almost no white areas visible normally.
Ears are vestige being small to nonexistent.
The teeth are in three plates on top and bottom, so 6 'teeth' instead of the human number in the thirties.
Breasts are used not for infant feeding but water retention. Depending on how much a Kobold has drank the breasts can go from flat-chest to DD cup. Females can 'carry' more water then males. The inhalation of so much water increasing chest size can cause pain if they have their armor on constraining the chest's expansion. There seems to be a natural limit preventing them from taking in to much and causing them to not be able to breathe while in the armor.
They normally have an Armadillo-like shell of alloyed metal and stone. This is in more detail below.

Sensory
Vision is not its key sensory information a Kobold uses. Eyesight is very sensitive to the amount of light. Is nearly blind in anything other then candle or starlight levels. Vision is not improved in low light visions compared to surface races, just overall Kobolds have poor vision.
While the ears looks small it has a large sensory organ inside its head for such allowing them to hear sounds below and above what humans can normally hear.
Kobolds sense of  smell are below normal. Its mucus cavity is set up to protect it from poisonous gases and takes away from its sense of smell.
The creatures have unique sense of taste. Normal foods have almost no taste to them unless its something with a elevated mineral content, like some root vegetables. What it does taste with its metallic and rock diet is generally hard to describe to others since it lacks corresponding items that they and others eat.
It has one other sense that has been enhanced a great degree. Its main sense is its sense of touch. It can feel vibrations and shockwaves in the ground like a sonar going through the earth around it. This is why they can dig though solid rock without the fear of hitting lava or water pockets deep underground.

Armor Shell
Kobolds naturally create interlocking bands of alloyed metal and rock around their body. This armor is mystically excreted from what the Kobold has digested. It normally takes 2 hours for one to form. The armor can shift to allow a Kobold to see or get water but normally is nearly completely covered in the heavy protection.
At the hands and up the forearms is the base for 2 wave pattern blades that jut out 2 feet long. They form in a loose V as a scoop and digging tool for the creature. These blades mystically can cut through solid rock and would make short work of wood or flesh that get in their way.
Every 3 or so months the old armor's enchantments fail and the Kobold's armor falls off. The Kobolds refer to this is molting and it leaves the creature without any of its normal protection. The benefit is this is the time when they become sexually active. A male will normally last 12 days before reforming the armor. A female if pregnant will not form a new shell till the young are birthed otherwise she will form a new shell in around 20 days.
The old shells are never reused or eaten by a Kobold if they can help it. It is considered by them eating ones feces. Others consider it highly valuable for use as armor and weapons.

Diet
The plate teeth are similar to the hand blades but powder what they bite in to. The Kobold literally eats dirt to survive. They have a demonic metabolism that allows them to digest such. Later on the materials are excreted to form the new armor.
They need very little water to survive. A thimble of water is good for a day.

Immunities
A Kobold are totally immune to digested poisons. They naturally eat some of the most toxic heavy metals as their normal diet. Water is also similar that can drink poisonous liquid.
The respiratory system is very good at filtering poisonous gases and unless its a very high concentration they can survive in time to get out of the area. In lower concentrations they can ignore the poison and keep going.
They are heavily resistant to heat and minor to cold. In conditions which had flash of such they generally resist it without any real effect such as from magical flames or ice.

Vulnerabilities
A Kobold can not resist Demonic magic at all. The races creation has left them with this. It does not matter the source of the casting. It seems to flow right through the armor to the creature beneath.
If they are within a distance of a strong powered Demon who gives out a call they will feel compelled to go to serve such. Few can resist the urge to do so.
Electrical attacks have proven to be highly effective against them. Even the most minor spells can caught devastating damage or death due to the metals in the body acting as a conduit.

Biology
Kobolds age similarly to humans. The normal age they start to die off is when their plate teeth start to be lost. The inability to eat is the main cause of death for them in old age.
Children from crossbreeding are nearly always of the race the mother is. The times that would be half breed the mother normally loses the child. The unique diet of the Kobolds just is not conductive for half breeds to survive. There can be some characteristics of the other but for the most part they are of the mother's race.

Mental Abilities

Language
Kobolds are multilingual creatures. They have a very oral tradition and the use of various languages in such.
The Kobold language itself is a banging sound that is like Morse Code with dot and dash equivalent. The sounds reverberate in the passages and caverns very well allowing communication long distances. The language is very limited giving basic information, it lacks the words for emotions or concepts. Written form is engraved and felt when reading like Braille so it can be read in the dark passages of the underground.
They also know and speak some other languages to cover more person contact with each other. They are almost always illiterate to such languages having almost no written records from such.
The few surface tongues are often an archaic form having nearly no contact with such.
Dialects of Drow and the Dwarven languages are the most up to date and used due to intermitted contact. They also are often mixed together in their speech to the annoyance of the Drow and Dwarves who talk with them. There is a rare chance one will know how to read some words from these languages.

Knowledge
Kobolds are one of the primitive races. The average intelligence is below many other races. They have very little incentive to learn new ideas and things with the environment they live in. This is not to say they are stupid but generally are ill educated but can be cunning.
They are pretty much a Stone Age race technologically. Their body's natural armor and weaponry leave very little need for tools.
Racially there is an instinctive knowledge of geology.
Kobold will know when any higher Demon in an area depending on how powerful the Demon is if it calls for them.
Artistically they do two different forms. Primitive wall art is engraved at time along passages they use. The higher form is the ballads they will chant out. The ballads can be short or even hours long. Such are hard to keep track of as often they use loan words from different of languages switching as the beat and the sounds dictates.

Magic Use
Very few of them know magic but when they do it can come from a wide variety of styles. Females tend to be known for the magic more then males.
They do have a powerful natural magic but it is generally locked up in animating and binding their armor. Normally with the armor they can only exert minor magical showings. For one to use greater magic it has to forgo its armor which is hard to do. A rare few have used magic to stop the making of the armor so they can cast more magic.

Social

Society Structure
The normal social group is a clan made up of a group of loosely related Kobolds. These can range anywhere from a few families to upwards of 300 individuals.
There is no permanent urban centers they create. There can be some long term areas for a small group. They do make a number of caverns and passages but as the choice materials they eat play out they move to another area.
The more dominate sex is the female of the group. Part of it is because the ability to carry more water, ease of magic use, and a more aggressive personality. Since they often are outside of their armoring for child birthing they tend to make up for it with a more forceful attitude. Leadership can be fluid and if an argument breaks out the group may split in to different groups and move away from each other. Combat is almost unheard of for them to settle leadership roles.
There tends to be a small number of singers. These are ones that memorize old histories and chanting them out. There normally are at least 2 but in large groups upward of 20 are not unheard of. A singer will always try to have an apprentice to learn the songs so that no information is lost.
They do at times have a follower group who moves in to the area as they dig. The other race gains the rooms and such as the Kobolds dig while the Kobolds gain company and interbreed with them at times. The two might merge at times but eventually the separate needs will see them split.

Slavery
They do not practice slavery and very few races have found a way to enslave them. It is hard to bind creatures that can chew through steel and dig passages out of stone. Magic has been used successful and any greater Demon can do so easily.
Binding of their magic normally is not strong enough to stop them from forming the armor. If it is it also prevents them from eating causing them to slowly starve unless released.

Equipment
Kobolds themselves almost never craft items. With the natural armor they have no need for weapons or armor, and the way they eat means they have a constant source around them underground.
What equipment they have is for when they shed the armor. These are normally bartered for with other races and always tend for the lightest weights and with good durability. They might gain a lot but in the long run it is what a Kobold can carry is what is kept as when they move each one generally carries its own possession and they lack carrying vehicles or beasts of burden. Anything they can not carry is abandoned.

Combat
Combat ability of Kobolds are mainly melee. The heavy armor they have allows them to take a lot of hits and their natural weapons can cut though nearly anything it hits such as armor, flesh, and bones with ease. Their limited sensory ability means range battles they are almost totally useless other then as targets.
On the surface the sun is blinding to them leaving them having to seal up the armor making them blind. The vibrations they normal depend on can be overloaded in a large scale battle by so many feet and hooves. Aerial combatants come out of nowhere as they can't sense like those on the ground. This means in surface battles they are at a serious disadvantage and used more as berserkers pointed in a direction and let loose.
Underground they have the limited ranges and no sun removing the largest disadvantages of the Kobolds. The heavy armor in tight spaces and the burrowing tools make them devastating in combat. They also can dig very rapidly allowing for flanking or collapsing sections in tunnels as combat is raging.
The  armor can be bypassed by skilled combatants using the right weapons. Being bands of metal if one slips a weapon upward can get through but normally can not a deep killing blow. Blunt weapons seem to do no real harm as the alloyed armor can take it.

History
In the middle of the first war of power the Demons found they needed a sapper force when they fought the Dwarven cities or other underground bastions that resisted them. The use of allies that normally are there helped but were not enough to truly take them out. The use of other surface races tended to far poorly in these endeavors. With the creation of the other races one minor Demon called the Shallow thought he had a solution.
The Shallow would take a large number of Dwarves along with others for his creation and would come forth as the Kobolds.
Kobolds would not be the fastest breeding so took time before there was enough to really be effective. They were used sparingly in combat but more often in creating underground bases for the Demons' forces as bases. The armor they shed helped equip many fell knights.
It was toward the end of the first war they were concentrated. The night battle they led the charge cutting though an Elven army. A powerful magical assault by Elven wizards stopped the rout. They were decimated by lightning magic destroying virtually the whole unit. The few remaining were kept as ceremonial guards for various Demon lords or as sappers.
The survivors burrowed down in loose bands after the end of it. These groups would roam the underground with no real cohesion or leadership. Without a Demon they seem listless in what they did or where to go.
Leading up to the second war when the Demons once more called the Kobolds came up responding to them. Many hidden bases were dug out and others expanded as the Demons prepared. In combat the Kobolds were used again on the surface and while they would rip through the enemies they were often uncontrollable in the daylight battles blinded and disoriented. A few times they would turn on their own side by confused berserker accident. Magical attacks of lightning generally were what wiped them out.
By the end of is war they once again were rear guard and again returned to the depths of the earth. A few were captured as slaves or trophies but they did not last long in such breaking out or the magic controlling them waned enough for them to fight.
The final war of power once more had them come up. This time they were rarely fielded on the surface but below it they would be used heavily. The Dwarves took the brunt of their actions. When the Demons were finally defeated they kept down below the surface and would disperse.
The surface world had never seen any real force of them during the last war and believed them wiped out in the second war.
The Cataclysm disconnected them from the few that knew of them. Over the centuries they would turn to legends with most of the races. They were so deep modern mining would find traces of them but had a hard time meeting them.
This is not to say they did not come up but few realized what they were thinking them strange Dwarves in archaic armor.