Gold dragons are the ones most often killed by humans, who consider their scales to be extremely valuable. These golden scales grant them a high level of protection, similar to armor, and they use this to their advantage in battle.

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.

At the back of Kad's clan cave, a curtain extends across a tunnel entrance, concealing something from view. That something is the Skeleton in the Closet—a dark little secret that no one wants to admit exists. Depending on whose tales a visitor heeds, Skeleton could have earned his name and position by a variety of ways. Cade, the clan's favorite rumor-teller, claims that he used to throw each year's weakest hatchling into the nearby river. Valeng, a more reliable but infinitely less forthcoming source, has supposedly stated he tortured a human into insanity. The faker Clairvoyant shakes his head at their everyday explanations: Skeleton made a little white chair out of hatchling bones and tied clan human Kad into it for several days, he says. Regardless of the original crime, no one doubts that Skeleton would be easily capable of all of the suggestions if he wasn't chained up.