Dragon

No single shape defines a Dragon; the race spans a menagerie of forms bred or born to wildly different ends. The domesticated Light Dragons include the small winged Broombuggies ridden as transport, shaggy goat-like Woolly Wallies that yield textiles, armored alligator-like Hammerbacks that produce minerals, ever-burning dog-like Matchboxes, and deer-like Bud Bucks whose antlers can blossom into flowers. At the dangerous end loom the great black Dark Dragons, the corpse-wearing Disguisers, and the seven ancient Marchens said to predate Reverse London itself.

As a whole the race is perilous to the unprepared, and in earlier ages Dragons were blamed for the majority of London's deaths, yet most of the populace, unable to see them, files them away as legend. Wing Bind keeps the tamer breeds domesticated for their resources, while the aggressive Dark Dragons hunt Humans on sight and, though highly intelligent, mostly parrot back the speech of the people they have spent time around.

Dragons have haunted London for centuries, and their toll in medieval times, blamed for roughly seventy percent of the city's deaths, left their image stamped on its Coat of Arms. Modern oversight falls to Wing Bind, staffed by residents of Reverse London, which pens food-producing breeds in tracts such as Ninebrook Pastures. A 1609 statute, the Dragon Contact Prohibition, bars ordinary citizens from handling Dragons unless they join Wing Bind, on pain of a century in prison or execution; those who break it accumulate a toxin called Dragotoxin and, past a certain threshold, are transformed into Dragonclad.