One of the most prolific sentient races in the Parasite world whose native layer is not known, though they are known to exist in great numbers on most layers. They are an aggressive and not particularly intelligent species, landing somewhere between chimpanzees and humans in intelligence. Kobolds are true omnivores, capable of feeding on sexual fluids from males or females, or subsisting on carnivorous, herbivorous, or omnivorous diets. That said, they generally prefer sexual feeding and gain the most nutrition from it.

Physically, kobolds average approximately 3-4 feet (90-120cm) in height as adults, making them roughly the same height as hayim.

A monosex race, kobolds are all female and able to reproduce asexually, laying self-fertilized eggs that hatch into females. It is believed that they once reproduced sexually in the distant past, but that their ability to produce what are effectively clones caused their males to be outcompeted. To maintain genetic diversity, kobolds are capable of ingesting genes from each other and any prey they feed on. This is superficially similar to the genetic marking process of the hayim, but kobolds take more than mere genetic markers and have some level of control over the process. The kobold genome is remarkably flexible, allowing them to take traits wholesale from genetic donors, thus also allowing kobolds to thrive in nearly any environment given enough time. Kobolds thus vary greatly in appearance depending on the layer in which they live. The pictured kobolds are of the Nadayal strain of the species, adapted to living in swamps.

Though all kobolds are female, they are divided into distinct castes; workers and breeders.

Workers are more slender and muscular than their breeder counterparts, often built to better camouflaged themselves with their environment. They perform much of the manual labor and hunting tasks of their tribes, particularly the hunting of sexual prey. To this end, they have a much stronger grip and greater eyesight than breeders, while some of their teeth are hollow and produce a nonlethal muscle numbing toxin. Coupled with the ability to stick to surfaces with their frontal scales, this means they will often capture prey by grappling and biting them, not letting go until the prey is exhausted and incapacitated.

When kobolds captured prey, they are brought back to their stronghold camps and treated as sexual cattle. Breeders manage these camps and handle the care of both the kobolds' livestock and their young. They are not as muscular as workers and have a more traditionally feminine figure including breasts and nipples. These breasts are functional, but are not used to nurse the kobolds' young - kobold hatchlings are precocial, and do not require nursing at all. Instead, kobold breeders' milk is used to feed their prey. The milk's nutritional value can be controlled effectively at will, with breeders changing its contents by changing their diet. Though nutritious, the primary purpose of nursing the kobolds' captured prey is modification. The milk contains hormones tailored to the species being nursed that, over the course of months, alters the prey's mental and physical state to better suit the kobolds needs. These modifications consist of an increased sex drive, a near-inability to orgasm from masturbation, and granting the prey a variation of kobolds' own genetic chimeroid nature. The last modification is needed to help maintain captive livestock populations, allowing very different prey species to interbreed. These modifications are effectively irreversible.

Both castes of kobold are capable of laying eggs, and can self-fertilize at will.

Kobolds are a primitive sentient species whose intelligence falls somewhere between chimpanzees and humans. They possess their own language, customs, and even a series of esoteric animist religions. Although capable of surprising feats with stone and wood tools, they have no understanding of metalworking and only use whatever metals they can scavenge and force into usable shapes. Their use of magic is similarly primitive, with their shamans utilizing useful (and in combat, very dangerous) but ultimately very basic forms of magic.

Despite their seemingly innocent and sultry demeanor, kobolds are a very aggressive species who regularly raid their neighbors for both prey/livestock and resources, particularly resources they lack the knowledge to build themselves. They generally see themselves as above other species, and treat other sentients as nothing more than the sum of their usefulness. In kobolds' eyes, other sentient sex feeders exist only to be raided, and non-sex feeders are cattle to be used for resources.

As a rule, kobolds do not wear clothes aside from what is required for camouflaged or rituals. This is due to the fact that their abilities mean that they are always well-acclimated to their environments. They often do not wear armor, either, lacking the knowledge to craft meaningful armor. The armor they possess the knowledge to create would not protect them very well, and would create or exacerbate infections when punctured by contaminating wounds. The exception to the above is kobolds who live on layers with particularly extreme variations in temperature.

Although always aggressive and supremacist, kobold society otherwise differs greatly depending on tribe and layer of origin, although they nearly always organize themselves into tribes. The kobolds of Nadayal are an especially shamanistic sub-race of the species, possessing great numbers of skilled magic users of both castes that act as religious leaders. These shamans perform a number of fertility rituals upon both their cattle and themselves, and are one of the more successful and plentiful sub-races of kobolds despite their hydromel neighbors' determined attempts to stamp them out. This success is attributed to sub-species' skill at remaining hidden through both mundane and magical means. Nadayal's kobolds are among the most skilled in matters of stealth, making their raids particularly dangerous and their encampments especially hard to find.

Rank among the Nadayal kobolds is decided largely by magical potential. Unlike other sub-species, magical skill among the layer's kobolds is evenly divided between the two castes, making leadership positions in a given tribe evenly distributed between workers and breeders most of the time. These shamans are unusually skilled compared to others of their kind, capable of casting unique spells that other sentients cannot duplicate, although such spells often require complex rituals and multiple shamans to cast.

Nadayal kobold religion differs from most other kobolds in that they do not worship the spirits of animals, ancestors, or the land around them. Instead they worship "essences", believed to be the motive force of life, tied to emotions. They believe these essences can be taken in by others through ingesting the parts of living creatures that correspond to that essence. This informs their refusal to eat the flesh of other sentient creatures. Despite believing all other sentients are little more than animals, they believe that ingesting the essences of sentients - especially non-sex feeders - would overwhelm and sicken them if ingested as they hold that sentients have particularly powerful essence. This also means, however, that they strongly prefer sentients as sexual livestock

Kobolds of Nadayal hold all essences with high regard, but believe that essences of desire and attraction are the strongest of them all. This belief means that they do not simply bring their sexual prey to orgasm when feeding, but actively pursue great highs of emotion and need when doing so. Using physical tools, salves, and magic, they will often edge their livestock for hours or even days before feeding, leading to a greater release that they believe will grant them more essence. Believing sexual fluids to be essence distilled into physical form, they possess a great many rituals and practices involving it, and will "milk" their livestock for fluids much more often, getting more than they would ever need to feed on. These fluids are drank, used in certain food, drink, and potions of religious significance, or used as magical humors, for which it is crudely effective, though most sentient sex feeders consider it dangerous and wasteful to use sex fluids in this fashion. Some of their rituals will even involve coating themselves in fluids, usually fresh. To accomodate these practices, Nadayal kobolds are considerably more practiced at coaxing sexual fluids from their livestock than most kobolds.

Nadayal kobolds possess no single central nation or kingdom, instead divided into many tribes. These tribes often regard one another with suspicion, and will raid each other almost as often as they will non-kobolds.