Dragons are creatures with nearly unlimited life spans. They can survive for long periods of time, and no one has found a dragon that has died of old age. Adolescence 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. Once they hit adolescence, hatchlings change quickly, maturing to their full forms in only 2 years.

Dragons don’t communicate with each other verbally, but they will growl to scare off predators and frighten prey. Young dragons will emit an extremely high-pitched squeal when they are frightened. To communicate, they use telepathy with each other and to speak to other creatures.

Paper dragons are not truly living creatures. They are pieces of parchment enchanted by magic, and as such, are very vulnerable to fire. However, they behave almost like dragons. The only place where their behavior differs is breeding: paper dragons cannot breed.

Thaye Inry is one of the most important dragons of his cave. He's a tracker. Ironically for a paper, his job is to keep track of the Red dragons and who's turn it is to warm the cave's eggs. Theye is the one who will take note of which reds went when and which reds are new or due for their turn. For his own protection, he is routinely covered in a fire-proof substance, though not always completely. Occasionally, a small part of him is missed and a rouge flame ignites it. This causes an emergency dowsing followed by rather disgruntled Paper and the Reds trying their hardest to stifle their laughs.