Red Dragons are similar to typical story book dragons. They shoot flames, can fly, etc. However, they aren’t evil creatures as depicted in myths and won’t go around raiding castles, killing knights, or kidnapping princesses. They live in a variety of habitats, from forests to coastlines to abandoned castles, usually in warm climates, and eat whatever living creatures they can find.

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.

Pais lives with a human she admires and envies for his wealth and ability to acquire so much of it in a short time, though she harbors no ill will or desire to steal any of it. He is from another region (she forgot its name—it's warmer there, and they have corn smut and lots of beans) where most humans speak a different language from the ones here. That's the reason Pais is around: although she doesn't understand the man's speech or writing at all, she can process his thoughts and relay them to the minds of other humans, either translated to their language first or sent directly to their brains. Because of her ability to sift through the muck of incoherent thought, she is indispensable and lives very comfortably in the man's house. The only issue Pais has to deal with on a daily basis is that she's mildly allergic to human dander. Whenever she sneezes, her human cheerfully shouts, "Salute!", and she confusedly complies. He's never explained what that's about.