When Water Dragons mature, they lose the ability to survive on land, entering the water permanently. They are adept swimmers and eat whatever fish are in the lake they live in. They tend to inhabit the same lake for their entire lives, although a few live in the ocean and swim all over the world.

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.

Nicephorus was only a hatchling when the ruins of Drekanos were assaulted by the remnants of its human rulers. He remembers little of it, only his panic and terror as rough human hands grabbed at him, nets entangling his body and dragging him out of the water onto cruel ground as he flailed and twisted in desperation. And he remembers his mother's arrival, and her slaughter of those who would attempt to enslave her child as they had her. As both the child of Vasacius and the first hatchling to be born into the freed city, Nicephorus has been indulged, petted, and protected by the adult dragons all his life. Lacking his mothers explorative spirit he makes his lair in the harbour that once imprisoned her, the sea bed of which his father has twisted into fantastical shapes for him. A pod of dolphins can often be found swimming with him and he delights in listening to their fanciful tales. Sometimes they make him long wistfully for adventure.