Shimmer-scale Dragons are a very beautiful breed with small—but highly reflective—scales that shimmer and shine as the dragon moves through water. They don’t have fins or webbed feet, but their long, eel-like bodies allow them to swim quite fast. They were once rumored to carry large pearls in their claws—causing many to seek them out in search of this fabulous treasure. In reality, the “pearl” is of greater value to the dragon, for the fabled treasure is actually an egg carried by a migrating female.

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.

Prince Koga is something of a contradiction if one believes the rumors that drift through the JavaTiger clan. Some clan gossip holds that he is actually a highly skilled ninja master and that, when he isn't busy with his courtly duties, he trains students from among the dragons of the clan in the ninja path and teaches them to use their abilities in service to the clan. How a dragon with scales that shine like the finest gold began to train in the arts of the ninja, stealth and subtlety, is unknown, although the most widely held theory is that an ancestor of his underwent training and it is now a family tradition. No one can prove any of this, of course, and if anyone asks, he will usually give some cryptic remark about the best place to hide something being in plain sight. Most, of course, believe that all of this, like the rumors of mere fowl trained in similar arts, is the product of some dragons' overactive imaginations and Koga is a shimmer prince, no more and no less.