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.

Zahera's lineage is very strange for dragons of her breed; Hellfire Wyverns and Ice dragons do not typically get along, but by some miracle, Diablo of the Burning Lake and Breath of Winter created Zahera. Her temperament is very hot-headed and brash, but she is learning from her mother that patience is a virtue and good things can come to those who wait and who adapt to adverse situations. Zahera has something of an inferiority complex and feels that she has to outperform all of the other dragons in hunting to compensate for her "flaws".