It all started on a chilly Autumn night, the cloudy sky parted, making way for the stars to shine, their light dimly illuminating the land beneath.

Although the sky was somewhat clear and the stars were shining, the forest was still covered in an inky darkness. The tall trees were blocking out the light, leaving nothing but darkness. However, it posed no threat to the inhabitants of the little village hidden within the forest.

These little scaled reptiles actually preferred the night, but most of them were still used to sleeping during the darker hours. That was a learned behaviour since they were heavily influenced by the other more dominant residents of the land. The ones that mainly influenced them were the humans, who were by far the most prominent species on their planet by sheer population size.

The members of this little scaled race were often hunted by them along with the rest that lived on the planet. This had been the case for centuries past, and was only so because they had been segregated by the other more humanoid races. The little kobolds had thus been forced to become scavengers and thieves or even become bandits laying traps on merchant routes just to make ends meet.

Now, of course there aren’t many that are afraid of a single kobold, since they are very small standing at 2 to 3 feet tall, weighing in at around 20 to 40 pounds and are generally quite weak. However, what frightens them is their reputation. See, Kobolds rarely travel alone, they tend to form packs and such packs are frightening to even the most seasoned warriors. A pack of kobolds is the bane of adventurers and villagers alike, even more so than regular bandits.

You may be asking yourself, how is a pack of kobolds worse than a group of human or elven bandits. Well, it’s quite simple, bandits are grouped up together for profit and rarely trust one another, hell they might stab each other in the back after a job is done just to get a bigger cut.

However, kobold packs function differently, kobolds establish a pack because they care deeply for each other and rarely run from a fight where they have lost a loved one. They trust each other wholeheartedly and will fight to the death if need be.

These packs are even more terrifying when you realize that the kobolds have a gift that all of their members inherit. Their gift is also what they are the most renowned for: their instinctive prowess for teamwork. Usually they travel in packs of up to 20 kobolds where each and every member has perfect teamwork with one other. They also have the inherent ability to see in the dark, which allows the less reputable of their kind to ambush merchant caravans and villages alike in the cover of night.

This reputation earned everybody's ire and distrust. Creating a society where kobolds are seen as a threat or as a pest. They are rarely treated as an equal to the other sapient species on the planet, and are chased out of most towns or murdered on sight on roads and in villages.

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Nevertheless, the little critters are used to these conditions and thrive in many isolated communities such as this one.

Indeed, this place is a kobold village by the name of Drak's Sanctuary, named after the Red Dragon that began protecting their ancestors at the foot of the mountain that he called his lair. Kobold villages are few and far between, mostly because nobody really likes them. But every so often they receive help from their much bigger kin, Dragons, and so manage to establish themselves.

Kobolds may be weak, but they have great relations with their much larger brethren. Their culture and religion is focused around their mighty and gigantic cousins, practically worshipping them. This culture created a symbiotic relationship between them, where the kobolds would receive protection from the dragons and in exchange the dragons would receive offerings to enlarge their hoards.

This is how Drak's existence has long protected this little village from organized human attacks. Some animals and other less intelligent species like goblins that would attack the village never gave him a reason to keep his promise of protection, as the little kobolds he’d been protecting were actually quite skilled in combat. He nonetheless still kept an eye out for them, for a dragon doesn't break their vow unless they are ready to pay the price.

As such, at the beginning of each season, the kobolds in Drak’s Sanctuary brought offerings to the mouth of the Dragon's lair wishing for his further protection and showing their continued faith in their protector. These offerings ranged from food, gold, all the way up to weapons and armour looted off the bodies of their aggressors or prey.

These humble offerings had over the years accumulated into quite the hoard in his lair. So much so that some other dragons had gotten jealous over it, and the human and dwarf adventurers were practically salivating at the thought of it.

Drak didn't think much of this, since none of these groups had ever truly attempted to challenge him before, and certainly not since he reached his first century of life.

There aren’t that many dragons who live that long, mostly because nobody wants a young dragon growing in their land, let alone a hundred-year-old dragon casually causing trade and immigration to cease from their mere presence.

As you might’ve guessed, a young dragon is always weaker and somehow more egotistical than an adult one, and they only truly mature once they reach their one hundredth birthday. Which is also when they achieve their maximum inherent strength, which would now allow them to grow stronger differently.

Once they reach that milestone, they start becoming increasingly harder to kill because of their wit and intelligence, many of them start to learn magic. Others shape-shift and take on human life to learn their craft and lifestyle, or simply to cause mischief. The point is, the older a dragon gets, the stronger they become, they also grow smarter and become trickier to kill.

A dragon is not only a walking talking calamity no, as a dragon grows stronger, and their name spreads regardless of the reputation, the stronger the name becomes. Their names hold an unknown magical power behind them, almost acting like a chain. Which is why a dragon's vow is so important to them. The curse somehow recognizes their name and depending on how widespread their reputation is, the stronger the curse becomes. And once a dragon breaks a vow they've made, they receive a curse forever weakening them.

Some dragons have lost their elemental breath, others lost their vast intellect and some have lost a majority of their scales, becoming extremely vulnerable. There are others that simply grew weaker scales or even lost the control over some or all of their limbs.

In light of this, Drak greatly feared this curse and went to great lengths to spread his name far and wide, telling everyone that he is protecting the kobolds. Hoping that nobody ever comes to disturb the peace out of fear of his wrath.

Which was also why he doubted that anything would happen for at least another 50 to 70 years.

However, this night shall shape up to be the last for the village.