Basic Information
Bloodline Ability
This Bloodline ability has not yet been unveiled to you.
Physical Description
Kobbin stands a shade over three feet tall, and nearly all of it looks built for climbing. His scales are a warm copper orange that deepens to rust along his forearms, shins, and tail, with smooth cream scales running from his chin down his chest and belly to the tip of his tail. A shock of fluffy white hair sticks straight up between his ears, which are wide, frilled, and edged with short spines that flatten when he concentrates and flare when he is pleased, which is often. His eyes are enormous and amber, and they spend most of their time pointed upward. A row of blunt cream spines runs the length of his tail, and the tail itself is rarely idle: it hooks around rafters, steadies him on steep pitches, and carries bundles of shingles while both hands are busy. He dresses for work and nothing else. A cream linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow, a scuffed leather bib and harness hung with tool pouches (awls, a nail punch, a short pry bar, three chisels, and a fistful of pegs), patched brown trousers with leather knee pads sewn on, and heavy leather gloves he cut down himself so his claws come through at the tips. A claw hammer with a handle worn smooth and dark by years of his grip hangs from a loop at his hip, and he reaches for it the way other people touch a lucky charm.
Kobbin earned the name "Shingles" as a child in Burrowbough because he was never seen without one, held in his teeth, tucked behind an ear, or turned over in his claws while he talked. The habit never left. He smells faintly of birch bark and pine pitch no matter how recently he has washed. He cannot enter a building without looking up first, and he reads a roof the way other people read a face: he can tell from the street whether the shingles have slipped, whether the ridge is sagging, and whether the owner has been putting off a repair since spring. Indoors he taps on beams with one knuckle and tilts his head to listen to the wood answer. He hums while he works, always the same three or four Burrowbough work songs, and he hums louder the higher he climbs. He has no fear of heights at all and no real understanding of why other people do, but he has learned, this past week, to be afraid of other things.
Notable Equipment & Companions
Personality & Temperament
- Fearless at any height and in any wind
- Cheerful, and he genuinely means it
- Spots a loose shingle from the far end of a street
- Works until the job is done right, then a bit more
- Gives his time to anyone who asks for a hand
- Climbs onto other people's roofs without asking
- Cannot walk past a bad roof and say nothing
- Takes on more work than one kobold can finish
- Startles badly at night bells and groaning timber
- Trusts kind words far more than he should
A roof is a promise. You put it up so somebody you will never meet stays dry on a night you will never see.
Big folk always look at the ladder, then at me, then at the ladder again. That's fine. The ladder is for them.
I saw them first because I was the highest one up. I keep thinking about that. Somebody has to be the highest one up.
- Rain drumming on a roof he laid himself
- Eating his lunch on a ridge line at sunset
- A good claw hammer with a worn-in handle
- Birch bark, moss roofs, and fresh-split shingles
- Being asked for help instead of being stared at
- Ladders built for big folk, rungs too far apart
- Being asked if he is lost, or whose pet he is
- Cheap nails, rotten battens, and lazy flashing
- Night bells and the smell of turned grave soil
- Doorknobs set right at the height of his eyes