Krai

The Krai are a tall, hardy race who, along with the Kyrema, founded the Collective.

Appearance
The Krai are large, muscled, and fierce-looking. They possess two arms and legs, and their bodies are muscled and barrel-chested. Their skin is course and rough, though hairless, and varies in shades of grey and brown. Two fibrous horns sprout from the back of their head, often colored wildly and are a point of fashion. The average height is around seven feet.

Biology
The Krai are natural hunters, owing from a past of evolutionary dominance over their lesser prey - prey which was fast, and so the Krai evolved legs optimal for moving faster. Their horns - once used for intimidation and defense - became a statement of familial allegiance and of fashion. The conditions on Listrai were harsh and hot, as it orbited just on the inner edge of a K-type star's habitable zone. Dark rainforests of pale green and grey foliage were the primary homes of the Krai, who, being omnivorous, enjoyed the spoils of both the flora and fauna.

History
Ancient Krai stalked the forests of Listrai, mainly building small villages and buildings out of mud and clay. These groups were small, mainly familial or inter-familial, and were only temporary.

Later, as groups of Krai rejoined each other, they pooled all that they had learned and began building larger and larger, more permanent, villages. This continued in cycles until large populations of Krai entered the metal ages and started building the first cities.

This eventually caused an upset as the traditional Krai concept of familial life became more diluted amongst large populations. Some skirmishes and civil wars broke out as it was debated who should be guiding the future of the Krai.

As this was happening, some lone groups of roaming Krai sought similar information gain as they had before, and ventured outward, across land and sea, in order to make contact with other groups of Krai who were having similar problems.

Both civilizations sought each other's knowledge, and these early explorers willingly traded secrets and innovations that the distant populations had gleaned, in exchange for their civilization's wisdom.

As these explorers returned, they facilitated peace talks amongst their fellow villagers and eventually brought peace to their lands. They became an inspiration that prompted many others to become explorers, and so brought the Krai into a new age of expansion.

Trading knowledge back and forth, and growing more advanced with each step, the Krai experienced a golden age that they called the Revelations.

This continued as the Krai became more technologically advanced. Their first space colonies also benefited from exchange of knowledge and allowed the Krai to move out to the stars fairly easily.

Later, upon discovering the Kyrema, they found this to be a prime opportunity to introduce them to the Krai way of life, and sought to trade information.

When they eventually met the Kyrema, they did as their explorer ancestors had done and traded their knowledge for the Kyrema's. This prompted an age of peace and cooperation between the two species, before the greatest test of their bond, and of the ingenuity and vigor of the Krai knowledge-seekers gave birth to the Collective.

Culture
The Krai enjoy both the pleasures of life and the prospect of the unknown. Pleasure-seeking, the Krai enjoy long periods of leisure, and hold food to a very high standard and importance in their society.

Though the early Krai lived nomadic lives, the later settlements prompted a further need for movement and exploration, and as such, many Krai became explorers in search of knowledge, especially during the Revelations.

Those who did not wish to explore became cartographers, sculptors, builders and tinkerers. Today, they are reknowned for their eagerness to become spacefaring, and for their need for physical movement.

Though sports were fairly popular throughout Krai history, the Krai have adopted many sports played by other Collective races into their repertoire of skills and leisurely activities.