Setting up a sandbox [D&D any]

[Willfor]

I'm building some factions in a sandbox game I'll be running under a custom system, but using D&D monsters for the most part. I'm looking for two small-sized races to compliment the local goblin populations as rival groups. I'm taking suggestions and the reasonings behind them!

Viable player races (humans, elves, dwarves, etc.) are excluded from this.

Kobolds are being promoted to a viable player race using half of their usual dragon fluff, and half of their canine fluff. They are excluded as viable suggestions.

X [Original Race] races (Wood Elf, Sand Gnome, etc) are excluded as well.

Any edition, any book, and even homebrew will be acceptable other than the three caveats above. Even races that are normally larger can be brought down to Small size for the purposes of this.

The help is much appreciated. :3

[Sinfire Titan]

Kobolds and Gnomes. Grab Races of Stone and Races of the Dragon.

[Willfor]

Kobolds are actually to Dragons what dogs are to humans: The Dragons bred them for utility and for pets. When the Dragons [insert leaving scenario] the Kobolds had little else to do but try to build themselves a proud civilisation. They've filled the Dragonborn niche in a small size. They are being used as a full player race like it says in the description.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Some fun ideas off the top of my head:

Awakened X. Pick an animal, an Epic Druid who liked them thousands of years ago Awakened a bunch, and they've formed a society with laws and rules that make sense to them but are dissimilar enough to keep them from interacting with humans.

Lycanthropes. A small but violent group.

Wyrmling Dragons. Hear me out. Chromatic Dragons are a burtish group, constantly hounded by good adventurers. They can't afford to feed and train all that hatch from their eggs, so they take the strongest and force the rest out of their nests as soon as possible. Those dragons have banded together, with individuals breaking off soon after hitting Very Young[7 years](or an older category, depending on how tough you want to make them). Parent Dragons now actively send their hatchlings to this group when possible, since they don't actively hate their children, they simply can only feed one or two at a time.

Fallen Angels. Low level good creatures, kicked out of Celestia because they're no longer neutral, but they'd be torn apart if they entered the hells.

Da Boyz. Orkz. Nuff said.

Undead. Skeletons and Zombies go uncontrolled if their necromancer dies, so they'd likely kill anything near them in the woods, and probably wouldn't die off quickly. This would lead to a region of the forest with a lot of undead in it surrounded by dead bodies, luring young necromancers looking for a quick source of power, luring Adventurers to kill those necromancers, leading to more uncontrolled undead. Intelligent ones may even have an actual society, relying on the random shamblings of their unintelligent bretheren to keep anyone else from reaching them, and possibly from even knowing they're there.

Pick a monster type, I can give you a reason for a society of them.

[Draz74]

Dusklings, from Magic of Incarnum?

You could go with a three-goblin-variants setup. Dusklings could be re-fluffed slightly to work for that, too; and you could throw in Blues as well.