Weis and Hickman's Dragonlance shared world novels introduced the kender to readers and players alike, largely through the character Tasslehoff Burrfoot, who became one of the main protagonists in the series.

The kender are often compared to notable diminutive humanoid peoples in other fantasy fiction, such as the hobbits of Middle-earth or halflings featured in Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings.

[1] Harold Johnson, one of those involved in the games, chose to play a halfling thief character whom he called Almar Tann.

Halflings were then dropped from the campaign, and Johnson developed both the initial concept of the kender and the first representative of the fantasy race, Tasslehoff Burrfoot.

To solidify the distinction, they were originally described as "thinner, more wiry, and more cunning and streetwise" than halflings,[3] with mixed success: While Matt Barton and Shane Stacks assessed kender to be similar to Tolkien's hobbits,[4] Daisy De Palmas Jauze considered them a novelty.

[5] Roger E. Moore introduced the kender, and Tasslehoff Burrfoot, to the wider community through his short story A Stone's Throw Away, published in April 1984 in Dragon.

"[2] Originally, kender were to be called "kinder", in reference to the German word for "children", but Hickman has reported that readers tended to read the name as "kind-er" rather than "kin-der" in print, leading to the decision to alter the spelling.

[2] Shannon Appelcline noted that game designer John Wick commented in a 2009 podcast that: "Kender … they don't make sense.

[citation needed] Alternatively, in the novel The Forest King the Longwalker tells the story of his arrival in Krynn through a great cleft in the ground.

The kender are described in a review of DL1 Dragons of Despair, the adventure module where they first appeared, as: "wizened 14-year-olds and, unlike halflings, they wear shoes.

[12] When kender appeared in the computer game Champions of Krynn, released in 1990, they were described as "ever mirthful"[13] and "a diminutive and highly playful race that resembles Tolkien's hobbit".

[14] Kender are described as not believing that there is anything morally wrong with handling others' items,[15] although the habit may land them in considerable trouble with the owner of an object.

[14][16] As a side effect of these characteristics, kender can be difficult to play within the role-playing game, as their lack of interest in monetary gain is "a virtual anathema" to the manner in which characters of many other races are typically portrayed.

It was recommended in The Mists of Krynn that kender be employed as non-player characters, with their kleptomania providing a convenient means for those running the game to introduce objects at critical times.

Kender are also described in Dragonlance Adventures as using this ability to taunt creatures, causing them to become irrational and attack wildly or fall into some kind of trap.

As they age, kender children gain education by hearing stories, desiring to acquire new skills, and playing games.