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.

Although Gnavorthiel is a fully grown dragon, he has kept the playful mind of a hatchling. When he finds a delicious carcass, he likes to arrange the bones in decorative patterns before cracking them open, sometimes even recreating the shape of whatever animal it was.

As a hatchling he used to dress up in fantastic costumes and wander around near human villages in order to be seen by as many people as possible. No matter if they thought he was cute and admired his look or if they got scared and ran away, he always had fun watching their reactions.

Nowadays, other dragons tell him it would be silly to play dress-up games at his age. Gnavorthiel secretly thinks it's silly to stop doing something you like just because you've reached a certain age, but he doesn't argue. He has just decided that his favorite character, the ballerina pirate "Dancing Gnavorthiel Silvertail the Terrible", is now also a really cool spy on a secret mission... perfectly disguised as an adult Black Marrow dragon.