Black Marrows are named for their dark colored hides which are encased in a distinct exoskeleton. Their skull and the top edges of their spine push out from under the skin as they age. As such, their young need excessive amounts of calcium for this armor to develop. The older a Black Marrow dragon is, the more skeletal their appearance. They often use their skeletal looks to lure in foolish scavengers or terrify predators. These vicious dragons love nothing more than to crack open bones with their stony beaks and eat the marrow inside. Voracious scavengers, Black Marrows will swarm and devour corpses both old and fresh, sometimes even dragging larger finds to the water to allow them to “ripen.” Despite their dreadful demeanour and often horrid stench, Black Marrows are devoted mates and parents.

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.

Viertria was once a shadowy, secretive dragon. She often chatted with Vexen and even lived with him. Despite not being mates, they used each other for food and bed. Vexen killed any hatchlings that he found, or who wandered into his cave, and ate the meat, leaving Viertria to pick the bones clean. They then made beds for themselves from the clean bones.

Although Viertria is just as responsible for the hatchling deaths as Vexen's mate, Marluxia- that is, not at all- she was captured and imprisoned by the army of the ice dragon, Judgement. And, unlike Marluxia, she is still imprisoned to this day.