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.

Killbound is a very lucky dragon. All male Hellfire Wyverns of her cave know that their matriarch, a dragoness aptly named No Quarter, would never tolerate any other female Hellfire Wyverns in her cave and watch their eggs carefully, hoping that they will turn out male. But Killbound is the matriarch's daughter and therefore safe from being chased away or forcefully frozen. Not quite so convinced that maternal instinct would be enough for No Quarter to accept her, Killbound chose an especially fierce-sounding name, hoping to gain the approval of her mother. She succeeded, and mother and daughter now rule side by side in such harmony as you'd never expect such a quarrelsome species to be capable of.