Water Walkers are small dragons that are frequently found around bogs and ponds. While they are flightless, they retain the flight sacs and hollow bones of their airborne cousins. These traits, coupled with their extraordinarily long, webbed toes, allow them to stand on top of calm waters, using their small sails to propel them wherever they please. They spend the majority of their lives on the water, retreating to the tops of lily pads when the waters become too rough to float atop.

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.

Episteme lives in a secluded cave with three other dragons. She has a photographic memory and an unexplainable sixth sense that sometimes allows her to know what will happen in the near future, or what is happening in the present but would otherwise be unknown to her. This is not a particular trait of her breed, but an anomaly analogous to that of a human psychic. She is the oldest of her group, and although she is the least powerful and impressive, she can unnerve the other three by always seeming to know what they are thinking. She is closest to Sophia, and the two of them often have lengthy arguments about the nature of the mind.