Editing Dirae: the Kindly Ones (section)

== Antagonists ==

[[Dragons]] (Also Devourers, Drakes) One they had a great kingdom, but that was given over to the wastes so long ago that even its successor state is nothing more than a fable among the lands and people of Men. The Dragons are fell beasts, developing through their lifetimes strange attributes like additional limbs or poisonous blood or rows of envenomed needle-like teeth, and capable of assuming the shape of a simple human, in which they might choose to once again manifest their True Form, or only a few of their aspects. They have a strange desire for the flesh of the Kindly Ones, and it is this hunger which is, more and more as the years go by and become decades and centuries and millennia, the only thing which propels them onward.
The Dragons are few in number, and reproduce slowly, but they are so very hard to kill. Even in apparent death, victory is not assured, for each keeps its heart in a different place, and yet destroying the heart does not, in fact, kill the Dragon to whom it belongs. The heart must be destroyed, and then the Dragon. Or else the bones will join together once again, and the flesh will regrow, and the spark of life will relight its mind so that it can carry on its dread hunt.

[[Foxgirls]] (Also Foxlings, Kitsune) They are the reality breakers, shapeshifters which care not for Boundaries or Limits or Rules. They are tricksters, and they have a thousand different forms, and they walk the Earth rewarding and punishing according to the actions done unto them. Or just according to the whim of the moment. They are sociopathic, incapable of truly recognizing others as distinct entities, and they have a pathological need to act out every desire they possess. To show self-restraint is nearly impossible for the Foxlings. Every single one of them is almost entirely unique, not just in personality but in how they display their powers. One might summon up fire spirits to run amok through a building, another might throw balls of flame, and a third might use a wrist-mounted Vulcan-fuel torchgun, caring little for the fact that Vulcan-fuel does not exist, and yet all three will have been using the same basic power. And yet the signature ability of the Kitsune is, as noted previously, their shapeshifting capability, which allows them to become anything from a small twig to a massive SUV, and anything in-between.
These creatures care little for the nature of the world, and with every step they break the greatest boundary of all: the boundary between That Which Is and That Which Is Not, the boundary between Reality and Un-Reality.

[[Imposters]] (Also Catboi, singular and plural) The catgirls are all female. Not a single one disputes this. The Catboi (a term both singular and plural) are abominations, strange creatures which take the form of male Kindly Ones (were there any males to begin with). They are driven by an all-consuming desire to kill the Kindly Ones, but are cunning enough to resist this for as long as necessary to set elaborate traps and plots in which to ensnare their prey. While certainly not easy to kill, they aren't as difficult as a Dragon, even a heartless one, and yet the threat will never go away. As each one dies, its spirit is reborn once again (this being the only manner in which the race continues to "propagate") and will in time relearn his true nature... and the identities of those who killed him.
Nobody knows exactly how many Catboi there are, but popular opinion holds it at a good, round 500.

[[Machineborn]] Not quite the twisted messes of machine and flesh one would think they'd be, the Machineborn are the result of an relatively rare and sporadic phenomenon, in which the boundary between Life and Artifice breaks down for a few seconds. Machines and flesh are welded together instinctually by a newly-created pseudospirit, twisting and churning and seeking to form some sort of stable state. When the process does not abort prematurely, it results in the Machineborn: always feminine in appearance (for reasons still unknown, but heavily theorized upon), their flesh is augmented and in many cases replaced by metal, often capable of switching out hands for guns or deploying wheels and often concealing engines of a sort in their chests. And they are always insane, driven mad both by their inherent nature and by the process of their creation.