loreweaver-universe:

I’m on a half-hour break at work, so you all get more Starheart!

So far, we’ve only talked about races that make their homes on the southern continent of Evria.  The northern continent is a hodgepodge of nomadic human tribes and elven outcasts, and the western continent is little more than a giant mountain range inhabited by the extremely xenophobic dwarves, but to the east is a vast ocean broken only by scattered archipelagoes.  There is a thriving human community, but the humans live almost anywhere they’re allowed to; the race that hails from these islands is the reptilian kobolds.

Small of stature, nimble and dextrous, the kobolds of the island chains form no fewer than eighteen distinct kingdoms of various sizes and strengths.  Contrary to the human belief in the slow, dim-witted reptile, their civilizations are built on a web of intrigue and political maneuvering.  Nearly every kobold family tracks their relation to some ruling party, often to seemingly ridiculous degrees, but the eighth cousin of the current ruler of a far-off kingdom on the other end of the ocean still possesses some measure of political power, and their civilization prizes the ability to use that to your advantage.  An individual doesn’t even have to have real power; the ability to utilize your political pull to the maximum degree is respected and considered attractive to potential mates far more than the actual amount of power you possess.

The capital city of the third-largest kobold kingdom is in an uproar.  The current king’s third cousin’s daughter was bonded to marry Dav, the grandson of a disgraced politician, and one of her spurned suitors, offended by her being turned down in favor of someone with so little political power or acumen, murdered her in (if you’ll pardon the phrase) cold blood.  The king has called for the murderer to be brought in for a trial, but Dav, knowing that she’ll be able to use the trial as a platform for gaining even more power and unwilling to allow her to escape justice, left the kingdom ahead of those tasked with bringing her in.  Dav has arrived in the northernmost port city of the southern continent, following the murderer’s trail, but soon an encounter with a paladin hunting a threat to all the peoples of Evria will pull him from the chase and make him stop running from his grief.

KOBOLDS YES.  Of course I’m going to come over and talk about the little dragon people first.

This just breathes of place and history. I bet they’re just a bunch of hardy sea folk.  Just imagine visiting, going from island to island, but all that sea traffic is for kobold sized passengers.  You either have to sit motionless in a very tiny Kobold boat, or sit on top cargo on a larger vessel that was never intended for passenger comfort.  Unless, of course, your Kobold friend was of political importance and could procure a boat for one of your… stature.

I’ve been trying to make sense of the last paragraph for ages, but I just can’t decipher what goes to where.  Dav, the grandson of a disgraced politician, and one of her spurned suitors… This makes it sound like these descriptors belong to Dav, but that’s bunked in the second sentence… and just.

Dav, knowing that she’ll be able use the trial…

and also

will pull him from the chase and make him stop running from his grief.

I was all in for lesbian political tragedy, but I’m not against the idea of Dav being gender fluid either.

That aside, I get the idea that there’s three characters here and that Dav’s love is dead. 

Kobold political marriages sound like they’d really benefit if they considered any gender into the equation.  Need a heir but can’t beget?  Adopt someone from another family, they gain your clout and everybody gets to make at least triplely ridiculous claims to ancient kings and queens.  If you want family trees to get even more convoluted, adopted Kobolds could strike their old family names, so there’s really no way to track who came from where. You belong to the family now, it doesn’t matter where you used to be from.

Also imagining the importance of politics going all the way down to even modest trades.  Guild of bakers to feed you, weaver’s association to cloth you, every necessary trade building up their importance and being super organized.