Caligene Dragons have long been considered omens of death—reinforced by the skeletal markings on their bodies. They exert a malignant force on the world around them, causing other living things to slowly waste away in their presence. Caligenes favor the seasons of summer and autumn, disappearing entirely from the forests they inhabit during winter and spring. These malevolent dragons are physically weak, though this is countered by their natural stealthiness and alarming speed—enabling them to close in on large targets quickly and silently to create ambushes from which prey cannot escape.

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.

Lapidate has, among other traits, a split tongue, three eyes, a crumbling right toe, and blister-like scars. Many of these were due to injuries or disease during his youth, though he was just born with three eyes; there's nothing underneath the lid where the fourth should be. When he still lived in Mid-Stoke, he was agreed to be the most terrifying-looking of the townsfolk there. Dragons would sometimes say he looks as if he had been pelted with stones, and there was a joke among the youngsters that no one will ever know whether he was so ugly he was pelted with stones or he was pelted with stones and became ugly as a result. Lapidate was happy upon discovering as an adolescent that he had the ability to cause living things to atrophy, but he was then kind of disappointed that targets usually just shrivel, and if he really wanted them to obtain more deformities, he'd have to put in extra effort.