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.

In his spare time, Malasada studies and writes about black birds. Differentiating between species of similar-looking animals is hard, so he's decided his area of interest is all birds with any amount of black plumage. He is a messenger for the network. He likes the job and does as he is told, but the amount of heated dough he's paid diminishes if he stops too often to take notes. Malasada often will synthesize his findings to draw some interesting conclusions. While his scrolls and notes are entertaining and easy to read, one should remain very skeptical of his more outlandish ideas. His papers aren't peer-reviewed, strictly speaking. Few care about birds if they're not a source of food or entertainment, so there aren't other knowledgeable people in the area who can evaluate Malasada's work. He usually does nothing more than chat about them with other scholars as they stand together in the outhouse. Critics say that his work is "pee-reviewed".