Valentine eggs are only seen once a year. Adults’ mating seasons are very short, usually spanning a few weeks in the mid-to-late winter. These dragons were once reputed to be omens of good luck in love.

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.

Fosel is an archaeologist, specialising in so-called "rescue archaeology"—when a new building is planned for a location in an older part of Nworset, where there the soils often contain traces of draconic habitation dating back millennia, she is in charge of scouring the site for relics that would otherwise be destroyed by the construction. Her work is highly prized by Nworset's historical museum. She is obsessed with broken pottery.

Sometimes, Fosel gets the urge to do some experimental archaeology. Once, she found a piece of a ceramic jug that once held white wine. She managed to extract spores of the ancient yeasts from the clay and use them to brew up a new batch of the wine at her friend Myvyn's winery. Fosel has also rediscovered a method for preparing eggs that wasn't actually lost (she isn't much of a cook). Myvyn still teases her about "sherd eggs".