Kobold

**Kobold** (コボルト, *Koboruto*?).

## Overview

Kobold are fiends that lives in a tunnels in the mountains. There are kobold that lives in the Hyudan Highlands.

## Culture

Kobolds is a natural enemy of dwarves. The cobalt ores that occurs in the places where they live is difficult for dwarves to metallurgy and hinders the dwarves' activities.

They are good at digging are often hired out by fiends as pioneers.

## Physical Attributes

The face of a Kobold resembles a dog, but they have nothing to do with Dogmen. Rather it is closer to a lizard. It is smaller than goblins and cowardly weak.

However the ability to dive in the soil is superior to dwarves and has the ability to alter metals.

## History

There are kobolds assisting the invasion.

## Etymology

**Kobold** (コボルト, *Koboruto*?), also known as **Cobold**, is a sprite stemming from Germanic mythology and surviving into modern times in German folklore.

Although usually invisible, a kobold can materialize in the form of an animal, fire, a human being, and a candle. The most common depictions of kobolds show them as humanlike figures the size of small children. Kobolds who live in human homes wear the clothing of peasants; those who live in mines are hunched and ugly; kobolds who live on ships smoke pipes and wear sailor clothing.

Legends tell of three major types of kobolds. Most commonly, the creatures are house spirits of ambivalent nature; while they sometimes perform domestic chores, they play malicious tricks if insulted or neglected. Famous kobolds of this type include King Goldemar, Heinzelmann, and Hödekin. In some regions, kobolds are known by local names, such as the ***Galgenmännlein*** of southern Germany and the *Heinzelmännchen* of Cologne. Another type of kobold haunts underground places, such as mines. A third kind of kobold, the *Klabautermann*, lives aboard ships and helps sailors.

Kobold beliefs are evidence of the survival of pagan customs after the Christianisation of Germany. Belief in kobolds dates to at least the 13th century, when German peasants carved kobold effigies for their homes. Such pagan practices may have derived from beliefs in the mischievous kobalos of ancient Greece, the household lares and penates of ancient Rome, or native German beliefs in a similar room spirit called *kofewalt* (whose name is a possible rootword of the modern *kobold* or a German dialectal variant). Kobold beliefs mirror legends of similar creatures in other regions of Europe, and scholars have argued that the names of creatures such as goblins and *kabouters* derive from the same roots as *kobold*. This may indicate a common origin for these creatures, or it may represent cultural borrowings and influences of European peoples upon one another. Similarly, subterranean kobolds may share their origins with creatures such as gnomes and dwarves and the aquatic Klabautermann with similar water spirits.

The name of the element cobalt comes from the creature's name, because medieval miners blamed the sprite for the poisonous and troublesome nature of the typical arsenical ores of this metal (cobaltite and smaltite) which polluted other mined elements.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 *Dark Knight Story* - The Fairy Forest: Chapter 16 - The Fiend Invasion
2. ↑ *Dark Knight Story* - The Evil God's Labyrinth: Chapter 08 - The Iron Masked Warrior