Is it possible to speak to the Kobolds?

[Pyriel]

No databases, except in the loosest possible sense of the term. There's also no randomness. He means he expects that they'd copy & paste a template entry for new NPCs into the scripts. Realistically, it depends on whether or not the NPC is created as an object that can be activated. If they can be activated, then they have to have some scripted dialog or just a generic script that triggers (movement, or sweating or something). I can't recall any NPCs that are completely inert set-dressing, but it's not inconceivable that they'd exist.

They way the game is scripted, when an NPC is activated, some conditions may be evaluated, but it's linear aside from that. Making someone say something is essentially Speak(dialogue_block, dialogue_number), and I think the only way to do random with the scripting engine would be to overwrite a script from within some script or by hooking into the script engine from the area file. That's trickery they didn't plan for.

[Jocky]

Ahhhh I see. I understand what you mean. I'm no gaming wizard like you Pyriel but I've dabbled with Unity and have learned the basics of C++, C# and Java so I get the overall concept of it all. They'd have a basic movement script when the screen they are on was initialized, move along the X or Y axis by 1 or -1 but never leave a set 5 by 5 square or something similar. And then of course they'd have a script for when the character interacted with them. When character presses X on them, turn and face character and then run NPC dialogue block 1 etc..
So I suppose they would have attached both the movement and interaction scripts to all NPC's by default. But as the game was designed then, NPC's end up being put on roofs, or behind counters or whatever and thus they become inaccessible, but still have dialogue.
I gotta say, it's impressive how it's all done.