Black Marrows are named for their dark colored hides which are encased in a distinct exoskeleton. Their skull and the top edges of their spine push out from under the skin as they age. As such, their young need excessive amounts of calcium for this armor to develop. The older a Black Marrow dragon is, the more skeletal their appearance. They often use their skeletal looks to lure in foolish scavengers or terrify predators. These vicious dragons love nothing more than to crack open bones with their stony beaks and eat the marrow inside. Voracious scavengers, Black Marrows will swarm and devour corpses both old and fresh, sometimes even dragging larger finds to the water to allow them to “ripen.” Despite their dreadful demeanour and often horrid stench, Black Marrows are devoted mates and parents.

Dragons are highly-intelligent reptilian creatures that—from a human perspective, at least—appear to live forever. Many different varieties of dragon exist, each with their own unique qualities, habitats, and behavior. Adolescence in dragons is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. In Galsreim, dragons and humans coexist peacefully.

Tupeqyga finds herself unwelcome, an outsider. Even as others look up to her peers as they scour both wilderness and farmland for the dead, protecting the world from fetid miasma and the potential of zombifacation—the latter particularly important in the southeastern foothills of the Drowned Mountains, where Thyras frequents—Tupeqyga finds herself looked upon unfavourably. She doesn't understand why. She can fly swiftly through the Drowned Mountains's perennial fog, smell decay from a greater height than many of her peers—she has even soared high enough to be frowned upon by the stratoses! Even other marrows barely tolerate her. Perhaps it's the wasp scars among her scales, from which the occasional small swarm of pixie-wasps erupts to inject their eggs into another part of her body, or anyone else nearby. Maybe it's her scent, which Jagquari told her was reminiscent of asparagus. It couldn't be her karaoke. She often ponders this, gnawing on a bone and reading botanical romance.