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.

Somewhere- in the mountains, in the seas, or even in deep space depending on one's source- works (and plays) a shadow with little-paralleled destructive capabilities and little concern for the normal moral constraints. Demeisen, as the creature's representative to various dragon clans, lacks its power but shares its disposition. A tactful observer might call the sometimes female, sometimes male (and sometimes neither) Demeisen "whimsical", "witty", and "capable". An honest one would choose "sociopathic", "violent", and "frighteningly obsessed with war".

For a hellfire so hungry to fight, it keeps peace well. Its presence is usually sufficient threat against misdeeds. While it has been responsible for instigating chaos before, these rare occasions tend to masquerade as altruism slanted toward certain parties. Any clan dragon accusing it, however, must be prepared to defend against its friends The Culture and Special Circumstances and that unknown monster in the skies.