The Puppets

Lore & Background

In Krat, the Puppets are not a single guild or military order but an entire mode of existence. Every one of them was shaped by the Puppet Master, given a form, a function, and a place in the city's grinding machinery. Some are coarse and mechanical, built for the foundries and the mines; others are delicate, almost human in their bearing, serving as attendants, entertainers, or intermediaries. What unites them is the thread of origin: a single creator whose absence has thrown the entire hierarchy into a slow, creaking crisis.

The Puppet Master's disappearance—or whatever has befallen them—has left the Puppets in a state that the lore describes as both liberation and abandonment. Without the guiding hand, many continue their assigned routines out of ingrained habit, while others begin to question whether the purpose they were given was ever truly their own. This tension between duty and selfhood is the emotional spine of the Puppet faction, and it is the question P must answer for themselves as the story unfolds.

Pinocchio stands as perhaps the most visible symbol of this dilemma: a Puppet who speaks, who feels, who resists the script written into his wooden frame. His presence in Krat's social fabric reminds every other Puppet that the strings can be refused, even if the world was never designed to accommodate that refusal.

In Their Own Story

The rain in Krat tasted of iron and old oil. P stood at the edge of the Puppet Quarter, watching the others file past in their endless, shuffling procession—arms swinging in perfect, metronomic arcs, faces set in expressions carved long before they ever drew breath. One of them, a broad-shouldered worker with a cracked porcelain cheek, paused. Looked at P. Looked at the empty space where the Puppet Master's chair should have been, still dusted, still waiting. Then it resumed walking, because that was what it was built to do. P felt the phantom tug of a string that wasn't there and wondered, for the hundredth time, whether the absence of the hand was freedom or just a different kind of silence.

Reader's Guide

The Puppets constitute the foundational caste of Krat: every artificial being in the city, from the lowliest factory hands to the more articulate figures who navigate its political undercurrents. Their purpose, as originally designed, is to serve the city's functions without the burden of self-determination. Leadership nominally rests with the Puppet Master, their singular creator, though the Master's prolonged absence has left the hierarchy in a fragile, leaderless state. P is a Puppet by origin, and the entire narrative is structured around P's relationship to this identity—whether to fulfill the role they were built for or to carve out something unscripted.

Key members include P (the player character, a Puppet of uncertain origin and purpose) and Pinocchio, a Puppet whose sentience and defiance make him a focal point of the faction's internal struggle. Their base of operations is the Puppet Quarter and the broader industrial districts of Krat, where most Puppets carry out their assigned labor.

The Puppets shape the player's path by providing quests, allies, and moral dilemmas that constantly press the question of agency. Internal conflict is the faction's defining trait: some Puppets cling to their assigned roles as comfort, while others—like Pinocchio—chafe against the script. Hidden agendas surface as the story deepens, revealing that not all Puppets share the same relationship to their creator, and that the Puppet Master's intentions were perhaps never as benevolent as the Puppets were led to believe.

Did You Know?

• P, the player character, is themselves a Puppet, making the player an insider in the faction rather than an outside observer.
• Pinocchio's name is a deliberate literary nod, positioning him as a Puppet who resists the authority of his maker—a theme central to the faction's identity.
• The Puppet Master's absence is not simply a plot device; it is the emotional wound around which the entire Puppet community's behavior and anxiety are organized.
• The Puppets span a wide visual and functional range in Krat, from heavily mechanical laborers to near-human figures, reflecting the breadth of roles the Puppet Master designed for them.