If you’re concerned that these clothes-wearing, tool-wielding creatures might be intelligent beings Frigg and Scip are killing for points, I’d say you should dive into the comments on this page, where I and others get into the issue at great length. TLDR: I don’t think there’s firm evidence one way or the other in the text, but to my mind, making kobolds sentient would give the story intractable problems, so to me, they’re not.

As I said in my initial notes to Phil, the “Highs, Scores” title is there not just because of the number scores here but because “the connecting thread for this chap, as I see it, is achievement, exaltation, success, whether it’s the Iwatanis reveling in their power, Byron re-accessing his own, Scipio getting one up on Frigg… or the others enjoying a higher state of mind. Even Frigg feels like she can even the score eventually. Everybody’s gettin’ fat, ‘cept Mama Cass: the only one who’s not really feeling like he’s reaching heights/scoring well is Mr. Dedalus.”