Swallowtail Dragons are graceful and quick flyers, much like their namesake bird. They are capable of precise aerial acrobatics, and can reach very high altitudes. Because of this, humans observing these dragons are often astonished at how large they are when confronted up close. A Swallowtail’s diet consists of insects and small mammals plentiful in temperate forests. These dragons are also made remarkable by their paper-thin wing membranes, which allow light to pass through, creating an astonishing effect on starry nights.

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.

Nida, as she is known to her friends, grew up in the valley of pharaohs, sunning herself on pyramids and supping on the ample insect life of the floodplains.  It was a good, idle sort of life.  One day, however, she encountered some humans from farther south, who had trekked to find the great healers of old golden city from their home in the jungle surrounding a dark river. Horrible, deadly fever had been gripping their entire tribe--the fever of malaria.  So it was that Nida found herself wanting to help others and forming plans to do so, really for the first time in her life.  Since then, she has applied herself to organizing a new colony of Swallowtail dragons to move south from her home and try to help the humans there by combating the local mosquito population.  The fatter dragons and healthier humans live there with respect for each other, now, and Nida may miss the pyramids, but she enjoys having purpose in her life.