Fire Drake

Weight: 1,100-1,500 lbs

Length: 20-25 ft

Tail: 5-8 ft

Social Unit: Group

Status: Common

Native to: Melzac

Habitat: Volcanic areas

Known variants: n/a

Fire drakes are very similar in appearance to Arturian dragons, although they are larger and their bodies are more slender than those of the Arturian dragon. Their wings are also much larger than those of the Arturian dragon. Of the 4 species of dragon, this one is by far the least aggressive towards sentients. During the early history of Melzac, fire drakes would often loiter around the camps of sentients, who would feed them meat scraps once they realized they were not a threat. In return, the fire drakes would often light their campfires for them. Fire drakes live in large packs of up to 20 individuals. The packs are nomadic and follow herds of the migrating lava bison they prey on. Each pack is led by an alpha male, who is the largest and strongest male in the pack and gets to mate with all the females. A week or so after mating, the females build nests out of volcanic rocks and lay 3-5 eggs (the largest number of any dragon species). A month or so later, the eggs hatch and, like other dragons, will imprint on the first living thing they see after hatching. Like wyverns, female fire drakes produce milk that they nurse their offspring on for a few months until the offspring's teeth are sharp enough to eat meat. A substitute can be made from sheep's milk, lava bison blood, saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. This stunts the drake's growth, however, and should not be used unless absolutely necessary. Due to their friendliness towards humans, their large litter size, and their imprinting, the first inhabitants of Melzac were quick to domesticate fire drakes, using them as powerful steeds for millennia. After the appearance of The Great Drakon and the resulting extinction of sentient life on Melzac, the fire drakes that survived the cataclysm returned to the wild, where they continued to roam free for the next few millennia, returning to their old nomadic ways. Within a few millennia, Melzac is completely forgotten (with the exception of some priests and scholars), and fire drakes are forgotten along with it. However, in the year 21 AR, Weasel journeyed to Melzac, where he found an egg from an ancient domesticated fire drake (the embryo was comatose for all those years). He managed to wake the embryo from its coma and hatch the egg, naming the hatchling Flametounge and raising it as his own. However, Weasel had no milk to feed it with, and as a result he had to make the substitute and feed it to Flametounge, resulting in Flametounge being considerably smaller than most other fire drakes.