Red Dragons are similar to typical story book dragons. They shoot flames, can fly, etc. However, they aren’t evil creatures as depicted in myths and won’t go around raiding castles, killing knights, or kidnapping princesses. They live in a variety of habitats, from forests to coastlines to abandoned castles, usually in warm climates, and eat whatever living creatures they can find.

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.

Sometimes a hatchling is so greedy for food that they grow too fat to fly when their wings grow. Such hatchlings often become food in their turn. Such a fate could well have befallen Fortunus. However, the dragons who raised him taught him to catch and prepare his own food and were able to turn his interest in eating food into the activity of preparing it. Slow of thought as well as being overweight and out of condition Fortunus is very persistent when it comes to food preparation. Most of his experiments usually turn out poorly, and he has to eat them himself, but each of the dragons of Ferwe Weyr has a favorite dish that only Fortunus can prepare properly. Grilled and steamed, animal or vegetable, Fortunus can make almost anything fit for dragon consumption, and could even make a stab at preparing food for other creatures as well.