Ridgewing Dragons live just below the snow level on the upper slopes of mountains. They are a friendly, playful breed and enjoy dancing in wind currents near their homes or plummeting down into valleys from great heights. Their wings, by far their most striking feature, grow in fin-like ridges along their backs. While their bodies lack markings to blend better with their surroundings, a ridgewing’s wings have bright markings in the colors of the flowers that grow in their mountain habitat. Occasionally different-colored individuals can be found, but they are rare because their striking coloring offers little protection.

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.

Yamakaze spends most of his waking hours coming up with and teaching strange new "wind-dances", while his remaining time is quite evenly split between sustenance-related activities and escaping from enraged, older dragons. These older Ridgewing dragons are constantly left to tidy up the disasters caused by Yamakaze (who ALWAYS skips out on his duties) and many find his new dancing style (which he has called "wind-breaking") hugely insulting to the graceful, cultured dance inherited by Ridgewing dragons from generation to generation. However, many younger Ridgewing dragons are convinced that Yamakaze is on the brink of a dancing revolution and take joy in annoying their elders by either joining his dances or, for the less skilled, by bashing rocks together with an organised rhythm. Mountaineering humans who have happened upon sections of the dance have described it as a very "beat-orientated" dance that is "unlike anything they have ever seen before".