Hellfire Wyverns are so named for their foul tempers and fiery visages. Their social structure places all females above all males, due to superior physical characteristics and violent dispositions. Forced subservience of the males causes them to become vicious, petty, antisocial, and passive-aggressive compared to the aggressive and social females. However, orphaned hatchlings raised by foster parents of another species can develop surprisingly even tempers and mellow dispositions, proving that their defining unpleasant nature is, in fact, a learned behavior.

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.

Downseide, a baneful and destructive dragon, was raised from the ashes and then thrown right back down against them. Even before he hatched, the egg he resided in sat upon a pile of ashes that heavily masked the eggshell. His mother, Maldaeta, rules over him with an iron fist and often shoves his head into old cold ashes while filling his head with lies and stories about what his grandmother did to her. What often goes through his mind is revenge, hatred, and the musty stench of ash that sticks in his brain like a brand on a cow's hide.

As Maldaeta's son and underling, he often believes what he is told. Maldaeta tells him she is required to do the things that she does to him because of what her mother did to her and that it is inexcusable. "We're a team," she says; "we'll kill grandmother together... for us."

Unfortunately for the Underling of Ash, he is blinded by his rage so much that he doesn't realize that he is just a pawn.