Water Walkers are small dragons that are frequently found around bogs and ponds. While they are flightless, they retain the flight sacs and hollow bones of their airborne cousins. These traits, coupled with their extraordinarily long, webbed toes, allow them to stand on top of calm waters, using their small sails to propel them wherever they please. They spend the majority of their lives on the water, retreating to the tops of lily pads when the waters become too rough to float atop.

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.

Quipi is a jittery and nervous dragon, always jumping at his own shadows and edging around corners. His adoptive mother, a black dragon, accidentally grabbed Quipi by the tail as she tried to get an egg. But she loved the little water-walker and cared for him each and every day. It soon became apparent that someone was plotting against the little dragon though. Crowds of people gathered outside her cave and all of the stifling attention was making her poor baby very sick. She asked a friend of hers, a fog dragon, to hide Quipi so she could take care of the unwanted people. The black dragon chased them off but she knew that someone was trying to kill her hatchling for revenge and had sent the people to spite her. For the rest of Quipi's childhood she stood guard at the front of the cave, unable to go to her baby. Quipi soon grew up but the damage was done. Years of hiding had made the motherless sickly hatchling turn into a lonely, scrawny, edgy adult.