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.

Befur is interested in history and spends all of his time studying what has come to pass, with no concern about the future. Sooner or later the future will be the past and he believes that when there is no future left, mastery of the past will be the most important thing. He travels the world on a quest for historical records, especially the detailed writings of a relatively ancient writer called Auric Remembrance, who recorded many events contemporaneously. He knows from the timescale of her writings that she is a dragon, but since she never wrote about herself that is all he has figured out. When pressed to think about the present—which he doesn't like to do—he hopes that this Auric is still alive, and wants to meet her: but given her propensity for seeking out and recording wars, this is increasingly unlikely.