Ko, The Blue Kobold

Ko, Level 3 Kobold
Description:
Blue scales and a mighty 2’7” height distinguish Ko, the Kobold. Ko is the inheritor of a Kobold sorcerer who ruled their pack for many years. He could have become yet another slightly magical Kobold leader.
Stats:
Health - 20
Stamina - 16
Mana - 10
Nutrition - 10
Attributes:
Endurance - 2
Strength - 3
Coordination - 3
Focus - 2
Intelligence - 5
Traits:
Hyper Adaptability - Skills and spells are learned dramatically faster. All skills and spells must be ranked and the lowest priority will be reduced by approximately the same amount that new skills benefit from Hyper Adaptability.
Kobold Work Ethic - You feel a constant drive to work and gain constant satisfaction from productivity. Kobolds are typically grunts; even among their own kind they are happy to be useful to their group and work for little more than sustenance.
Skills:
2: Mining - Break rocks, move dirt, and excavate space within the earth, all while keeping an eye out for more valuable metals and gems.
3: Trapping - Create traps for hunting, guarding, or the simple joy of causing havoc at a distance.
Spells:
1: Snip - Cut something at a distance as if with scissors or a small blade.

Well, that was unusual. Such things as messages were rare enough already, but one from the gods, unheard of, at least in his time. Ko was a fully grown Kobold, and he had only heard of the gods sending messages to some of the oldest members of his pack, though he was never sure if they should be believed. The old 30 somethings would often talk about things that seemed impossible. Dismissing thoughts of rumors and stories, Ko returned to the present.

He wasn’t entirely sure what was meant by those messages, or why his Sheet had appeared following them. Opening his slitted yellow eyes, he rolled over and stood up. What greeted his eyes was a dizzying sight. Massive trees loomed overhead, and moss grew in patches all around. The trunks of these trees were unlike anything he had seen in his life, easily 4 times as wide as he was tall. They were spaced widely too and probably hundreds of feet tall, their leaves only visible as a swaying green mass covering most of the sky. Soon, the grey trunks led his eyes back down to the ground, revealing most of the ground to actually be roots snaking across the space between trunks. There was some normal earth with a few other plants, and the moss that seemed to be scattered about some of the roots and rocks.

On the whole, this forest was alien to Ko. It was like some fever dream, where the comfortable confines of tunnels and warrens was replaced with this alien, but strangely beautiful forest of towering, ancient trees. He felt so much smaller in the open air and amongst such massive behemoths, but he also felt a familiar exhilaration similar to when he had learned his only spell, Snip. This was a new place, and looking around, if the message was not a lie, it was unclaimed. It could be his. He was uncertain if he belonged here, but he had no other home now. The gods had spoken. Now he would do what any Kobold would do, pick up his tools and act.

Taking stock of himself and his tools came first. Then he could explore a bit to get his bearings. Then he would evaluate what to do next.

Ko had all of what he recalled sleeping with on him already. He had his frayed pants, a relative luxury among Kobolds. He also had his harness and dagger, necessities of carrying gear and protecting oneself. Additionally, he found a pick on the dirt next to him. Presumably, he must have been mining whenever this relocation happened.

There was also a new trait in his character sheet, Hyper Adaptability. It was his second trait ever, so he presumed they were somewhat rare, but the potential utility of it might be incredible. Maybe he could improve his snip spell in some way, or learn something else useful with less of the usual wasted resources. Wasted resources were the primary reason his pack had never had a single person learn more than two skills.

Thoughts of his old pack could wait for a good long while though. They were gone as far has he was concerned. The next thing he needed to do was get a better sense of his surroundings. So he naturally began inspecting the trees.

The roots of these Behemoth Trees, as he had decided to name them, were large enough for him to run across safely. They varied a lot though, and he couldn’t track most of them for very far as they rose up and dived back into the ground. As a guess, the various roots were likely from many different tress and the size differences were probably because of varying distances to their trees of origin.

The most useful thing he found by inspecting and rooting around a bit was that there were some gaps in the roots large enough for him to squeeze through if he dug them out. He could just burrow in the larger swaths of dirt, but he suspected they were only clear because of even larger roots below the surface there. Roots were in fact something important to understand when mining near the surface. They could help hold dirt and rocks out of a tunnel, or push through and collapse walls depending on the tunnels and what specific roots they were.

The Behemoths themselves gave Ko an interesting idea as well, they looked difficult to climb, but not impossible. A nest or building of some sort up there would be incredibly defendable. Such a structure would require resources and a way to haul stuff up though, so it would be impossible as a first home.

With that, it was time to make a new list. Ko liked lists. They kept everything moving, and they gave him something to do. He always needed something to do. It was just the Kobold way.