Blatant Fetish Posting- Genderbending Kobolds

When it comes to fantasy worlds, I think exploring non-human races and cultures is very interesting- biology and magical/supernatural elements means these beings can be very different from our baseline "human" experience, which adds both roleplaying potential as well as game potential for things like rules and background for a game world.

Recently, in some modern D&D lore supplements, the idea of Kobolds being able to switch gender was introduced. This, in my mind, was a very interesting way to make kobolds distinct from other races and humans, and actually makes a lot of sense given the setting- I always imagined kobolds being a bit androgynous in the first place, both in terms of height/strength/looks so it fits that it wouldn't be too destructive or difficult to accomplish in terms of a biological transformation. (I've even written about this before) Kobolds are usually depicted as a bit more lizard-like, who are much more capable of performing a transformation like that compared to a mammal. Kobolds are also often depicted as being highly communal, and the importance of the individual is usually placed underneath the importance of the tribe- both of these would also make sense as cultural elements of a species who can shift and change sex. You give up your own original identity for one that keeps the population of the tribe going even after a disaster. And that final element also ties into it- Kobolds are weak. They are minions or sometimes food for greater monsters, and they die a lot. Evolution shows that creatures with short life expectancy tend to have lots of babies, it's a more r selected species on the sliding scale of quantity and quality.

This leads a lot of doors to potential for interesting character development. My favorite interpretation of this is that it is not a willing or choice to transform, it happens naturally. If you play as a male kobold in a party of mostly male adventurers, your kobold will turn into a girl. It isn't some weird sex thing either, simply being in the presence of males means there is more testosterone in the air then estrogen- this triggers the change to begin. For the character itself; this could lead down a lot of interesting roads. Perhaps they don't really care about the transformation at all, it's a normal part of life for them. Maybe the character is angry or lashes out against these changes, especially if they were raised in a society where the innate ability to change sexes isn't normal, leading to drama.

But there's a bit of a problem with this. Let's get real. There is a group of people, we'll call them those people, who have those politics. If you can't handle spicy political opinions, don't read on.

Is this a boy or a girl?
Art @ecmajor (VERY NSFW)

Basically, some people like the idea of gender shifting or changing stuff in fantasy as a form of wish fulfillment, or worse yet, a intentional political addition. These are inane opinions. But the idea behind genderbending kobolds is still cool- but it doesn't have any bite to it.

See, in my opinion, switching your sex is a big deal. Even in fantasy where magic can be easy or painless; there are so many knock on effects to sex. Sex is an inherent part of what people are; and while most RPGs and video games making a character's sex a purely cosmetic choice, in the fantasy milieu it doesn't really need to be this way. I would find it much more interesting if a character changing sex was a profound thing that really messed up their whole life- and part of this is the fact that kobolds are a bit too androgynous for this to work!

Imagine if you, a female creature, spent your entire life and career as a ammoral vagabond that goes into tombs and explores around as an adventurer. You are skilled at picking locks and mending wounds. Suddenly you begin to bulk up, growing taller and less able to fit into small places. Your hands grow large and hairy and so unsanitary; fingers that once wrapped bandages around your wounded allies are now replaced with large digging and fighting claws- used by males of your species to compete for mates. Suddenly you find your attention span greatly sapped, finding the careful craft of making medicines or repairing machinery impossible or very very difficult. It's a profound part of a character that changes everything, in how they dress and act and are viewed by their society. To simply chalk it up as an "oopsie you're a girl now! :^) " with no mechanical or roleplaying depth makes it nothing more then a pointless cosmetic choice that means nothing.

Blatant Fetish Posting- Vore

So let's talk about getting eaten alive by monsters. That's fun- happens less often then you think. There's a lot of random, specific mechanics that could be used for getting swallowed up. I've seen a few games with rules like acid damage per turn, rolls or DC's to escape, and so on.

I've had to have written a bunch of these rulesets by now in my various monster and creature write ups. Here's a unified procedure to make it easy.

Art @FinalRoar (very NSFW)

Getting Swallowed
Usually, characters are swallowed whole on an attack roll of 20 by a bite attack by a creature at least two sizes larger then the character. For instance, a human couldn't swallow a halfling whole, unless if they were some kind of weird mutant thing, but an ogre totally could. To make it a little easier, I'd argue that the bite attack does no normal damage (since it's a swallow, not a bite).

Some very large mouthed creatures, creatures with vacuum-breath, or long sticky tongues like giant frogs have a save-or-be-swallowed attack/ability they use instead. Save or be swallowed. Humanoid monsters should probably have to grapple you first.

Once you're hit with one of these; you don't get to escape. You get swallowed up. Heroic characters could avoid it in special situations; like a mighty warrior could hold the creature's mouth open with their body, a Rogue could maybe grab onto the tongue and avoid falling down into the gullet, etc.

Digestion
Now, realistically speaking, it's pretty unlikely you'd actually be conscious if you get swallowed down the throat of a giant monster- you'd suffocate before you actually got harmed by stomach acid, and digestion is too slow to really act like an "attack" anyway. But this is fantasy, and I handwave this away since a giant monster probably has a lot of air in its body cavity for you to breathe at least for the first few minutes of getting swallowed whole.

Every round after the round of being swallowed, you take 1d6 + HD of the creature. This means a 4 HD giant frog deals 1d6+4 damage per round that you're in its stomach. You get a round of grace period, to represent the acid taking time to start corroding you and to make very high HD monsters less instantly murderous, though it's still pretty dangerous to be in there more then one round!

This is a nice middle ground of the main "punishment" of getting eaten to be separated from normal combat, but also means you don't want to get eaten. Based on certain monsters like Behirs or dragons or whatever I wonder if it'd be better to try and get eaten so you can avoid their more dangerous attacks like fire and lightning breath in standard D&D- this method makes a decent amount of unavoidable damage every round pretty dangerous on its own.

Escape
Once you're in the monster's stomach, there is no easy way out. Rogues may roll to climb out of the monster's throat- otherwise you are trapped.

You may make attacks against the monster from the inside. There is no attack roll- all attacks automatically hit. You cannot use any large weapons inside the monster; you can only use daggers or natural weapons like claws. (I'd say if you're inside a REALLY big monster, then you can use a sword instead, it cool) If you're fortunate enough to have these, you can harm the monster from inside. In these cases, the battle becomes a race against time to slay the monster and cut your companion out of its belly.

On an internal attack roll of 20, you can cut a slit large enough to escape, though it doesn't necessarily kill the monster; just deals the regular damage of the attack. Once this slit is cut, the monster cannot swallow anyone else unless it can regenerate. You can also save this move for a lethal final blow; the person inside cutting themselves out and the monster dies spectacularly.

I have no idea who the fuck drew this.