If you like you can look at the (sketchy, incomplete) GM notes as well.

The Kraelings

At least, that's what the hysterical elements of the media were churning out a few years ago.

Here are the facts. Old stories and accounts from the Second Age told of the Kraelings, an intelligent race that lived in the Treacherous Lands. A lot of nonsense got into the stories with retelling, but the one or two scholars interested in the subject knew that the Kraelings looked like humans, but could shapeshift into a "battle form", a larger, hairier version of themselves with powerful claws and unusual resilience. They tended to regard other intelligent lifeforms as food but were, fortunately, stuck beyond the Wall. Fine and well. During the Year of Chaos, however, it emerged that a number of... things... matching those old stories were living in Horizon, masquerading as humans, and had formed a kind of community (later interviews with the creatures suggested that some of them had been in Horizon for as much as a decade prior to the Year of Chaos). Exactly how they had got into the city, past the Wall, remains obscure; the Emperor's Gate was only reopened in the Year of Chaos, and has since been carefully watched by the Mayorality. The initial public backlash against the presence of a bunch of storybook monsters in the city was mitigated by their battling on the side of the city during the Star Tower crisis at the end of the Year of Chaos (see here for more details).

The Kraelings and their leaders used the brief respite to launch a massive publicity campaign. Several of them consented to be publicly examined by staff from the Imperial University. They demonstrated their battle forms, and it was confirmed that these were indeed the race of Kraelings spoken of in ancient tales. Accounts of the lives of certain Kraelings in Horizon were released, showing that they had assimilated into human culture and regarded the eating of other intelligent races as an abomination; further, they had themselves killed, or taken steps to have killed, Kraelings who had preyed on the human populace. Individuals who had become publicly known as Kraelings came forward to pledge themselves to the faith of the Intercessor and loyalty to the City of Horizon; they began surrendering their dead to the Ghouls. In response to these moves, the Mayorality refused to hunt the Kraelings to extermination, but also refused to give them legal status in the same way as the Ghouls (the other Treacherous race known to live in Horizon). The Four Embassies were quick to append clauses to the Last Treaty forbidding Horizon to permit the passage of Kraelings beyond her borders.

Despite this, understandable doubts remained in the public mind about the sincerity and candor of the Kraelings that had come forward. To the surprise of many, though, the expected violent backlash was not forthcoming. It seems likely that agents of the government and of various mobs had taken covert steps to calm the populace - conspiracy theories have abounded ever since as to the possible uses the government and/or the mobs are making of the potentially large Kraeling population. Certainly the Four Kingdoms seems to be slowly waking up to the fact that Horizon has a compliant citizenry of shapeshifting battle beasts that seem to have covert agreements with the Mayorality.

So the Kraelings of Horizon exist in uneasy equilibrium with the other citizens, the Mayorality seemingly unconcerned by their ongoing legal limbo. A number of individuals are publicly known to be Kraelings; these are treated with (at best) fear and anger by humans, but only rarely with outright violence. It is widely thought, though, that there are many more Kraelings in the city than are generally known. The fact that it takes a medical examination to tell a Kraeling (in human form) from a human helps to perpetuate this. The result is a vague, pervasive, Kraeling-related paranoia in the city. The Kraelings themselves maintain an outwardly stoic attitude to this situation, turning the other cheek and declaring dedication to the city and the word of the Intercessor. The few isolated cases of Kraelings killing or killing and eating humans have been swiftly dealt with the rest of the community, in conscientiously close cooperation with the Ghouls. Kraelings have become an almost-accepted part of the underworld scene; mobs were not slow to see their potential as enforcers. At first, there was some resistance to this from the citizens of the Lower City, but people were used to the idea of mob enforcers being essentially trained monsters. And as some wags have pointed out, at least you can tell when a Kraeling is about to start ripping stuff apart. The Kraeling case in Horizon was somewhat helped by news from the Treacherous Lands that nomadic tribes there had been pacified by the city's colonies, and persuaded to work with humans. The advantage was lost when word was received, first from Baron Montague and later from other pioneers, of a great Kraeling city in the depths of the Treacherous Lands, ruled by a brutal priesthood hostile to more or less everything that lives and breathes.

Apparently for reasons of tradition dating back to the relations of the two races beyond the Wall, Ghouls are generally hostile to Kraelings. This has yet to result in violence, but a group of Ghouls drinking in a bar in which a known Kraeling takes a seat will often make the entire room uncomfortable with their body language.

Kraeling Rumours

They're going to eat us! They're going to eat us aaaallllllll!!!

The Mayorality has the Kraelings on probation; when they've proved they're capable of living in Horizon without eating people, they'll be given some legal status, like the Ghouls.

This Kraeling dedication to the faith of the Intercessor is a sham. They're shamans by instinct, and that isn't changing any time soon.

The Mayorality is encouraging the Kraelings to multiply so that it can use them as living weapons, and hang the consequences for the people of Horizon.

The dislike the Ghouls just as much as the Ghouls dislike them. They're plotting to get the Ghouls thrown out of the city... or perhaps just to eat them.