...hobolds which wear red hats...
- pg.165, The Last Wish (U.K. edition)

Kobolds, also known as hobolds, are small ogroids with dog-shaped faces that dwell in wild forests and various types of underground caverns.

Quick Answers

What distinguishes a kobold from a witcher knocker?

Kobolds and witcher knockers differ mainly in size and appearance. Knockers are a larger, stronger type of kobold, noted for their hairy bodies and large beards, unlike ordinary kobolds. Kobolds have dog-like faces, with forest kobolds being hirsute and child-sized, while mountain kobolds have hairless reddish skin and are about 1.20 meters tall.

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What weapons do mountain kobolds typically use?

Mountain kobolds use yatagans, cudgels, and light crossbows. They are organized in tribes and often conflict with gnomes.

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How do kobolds interact with human villages?

Kobolds, often mistaken for goblins, are seen by humans as vandals and thieves, stealing from villages at night. These nocturnal creatures are organized in tribes, wearing leather and fur, and armed with yatagans, cudgels, and crossbows. They use oil lamps as decorations, showing more sophistication than goblins. Their interactions with human villages are mostly negative due to their reputation as noisy savages.

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What type of clothing do kobolds prefer?

Kobolds favor leather and fur clothing. They carry weapons like yatagans and cudgels. Some kobolds near human villages wear red hats.

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Characteristics

A feature by which kobolds are easily distinguished is their dog-like face. Forest kobolds are hirsute human-child-tall creatures with short legs and long arms, while mountain ones reach about 1.20 meters and have hairless reddish skin.^[3]

An exceptionally large and stronger breed of kobolds are most commonly known as knockers. Apart from height and breadth, one obvious difference between the two races is that a knocker is hairier and always grows a huge beard that tangles with time, which ordinary kobolds do not.^[4]

Kobold eyes are known to be used as an alchemical ingredient, as they can act as a poison to make the drinker perceptible to visions.^[5]

Culture

Some kobolds living near human villages are thought to wear red hats.^[6] Their more formidable cousins, known as knockers, are especially fond of hooch and other alcoholic beverages.^[4]

Mountain kobolds are organized in tribes. They wear leather and fur clothes and are armed with yatagans, cudgels and light crossbows. More sophisticated than their goblin cousins, they illuminate their habitats with oil lamps and lanterns, treating them as a luxurious decoration more than a source of light. Being in a constant state of war with the gnomes, they hate them particularly, sometimes keeping gnomish captives imprisoned in wooden cages.^[3] Gnomes, on the other hand, learned to evaluate whether the fuss heard in the deeps is caused by kobolds or not.^[7]

Trivia

• Red-Caps are goblin-like creatures that would bludgeon people to death and then dip their cap in the blood.
• Kobolds and goblins also feature in other works of Andrzej Sapkowski.
  • Some forest kobolds inhabiting an abandoned lumberjacks' glade near Ktova village appear in Chapter 11 of The Warriors of God novel. Shortly after his escape from the Trosky Castle, Reynevan is ambushed by about twenty of them; they are described as hirsute creatures being as short as human children, having short legs, long arms and ugly, doggy faces.
  • They are featured similarly in his The Eye of Yrrhedes role-playing game. Mountain kobolds from the Crookednose tribe are 1.20 meters tall, have dog faces and, contrary to the forest ones from the Warriors of God, hairless reddish skin.
  • The author also wrote a feuilleton titled Ya hoi! Ya hoi! Ya harri hoi! about the origin and role of goblins, orcs and similar creatures in the fantasy genre. A copy of it can be found here.

References