Dragons
One of the types of beings powerful enough to enter the world of Terocia from their home reality, Dragons were a group of explorers who sought to discover and learn about other realities. Within their home realm, their magics had an effect on matter, allowing them to reshape and transform it. The true form of dragons is something unknown to Terocia - instead, the forms we know them by are transformations they took on in order to protect themselves through interdimensional travel.
Dragons originally thought that Terocia's magic was similar to their own, as an outside observer might assume that its elemental magics have some kind of material effect on the world. However, this was the mistake that caused the Dragons to become trapped within Terocia, completely unable to access their own magics to even transform back into their original forms, let alone create trans-dimensional portals. Thus, dragons became trapped in Terocia.
Dragons themselves have a kind of "breath" attack. Originally intended as a means of exhaust, the dragon's breath became one of their most iconic traits. Their vaguely reptilian appearance eventually caused their progeny to take on a far more reptilian form - these "second generation dragons" look far, far more like the modern look seen in the more common draconic species seen today. Second-generation dragons have never been in their parents homerealm, and both have only ever known their reptilian forms, but also have only ever known Terocia as their home.
The scales of dragons correspond with the elements they used in their home - White for Ice, Black for Acid, Red for Fire, Blue for Lightning, Green for Poison, Brown for Stone, Magenta for Shadow, Cyan for Water, Grey for Metal, and Yellow for Light. Without these being elements within Terocia, the only source they have to manipulate them are the organs that create the dragon's breath, which matches the form of the element of their homerealm, and is a physical, tangible thing rather than magical.
Dragons themselves came about before the fall of mankind. A faction of them sought to have their children be able to properly access Terocia's magic, for if they were trapped here, they would rather their children be closer to natives of the world than aliens. The humans granted their wish, splicing their own genome into the children of the dragons. These resulted in the
Zarramante race, named for the draconic ambassador that first approached the humans with the request.
A New Exemplar Species
While the original dragons had more artificial forms meant for travel, the children they would have after becoming trapped on Terocia had a more biologically sound form. These second-generation dragons would become exemplars of reptilian life, growing massive in size, becoming warm-blooded, and retaining the ability to gather and stockpile energy from the original generation. Their ability to breathe one of the ten dragon breaths became iconic to the species, and reptilian traits came to be associated with them, to the point that they are referred to as "lesser draconic species" in modern times.
Dragons themselves became quite a variable spread of species. A number of legs ranging from none to four, some with wings and some without, some with the form of a lizard, while others are more serpentine, and each large in size. The dragons themselves came up with a system of classification, using terms such as Wyverns, Wyrms, and Drakes (among others) to refer to the different body shapes taken by the species, which the people of Terocia would adopt.
However, despite the significantly different shapes, they all still share the same species, and the different subspecies of dragon are still able to intermingle. Dragons, though sapient as adults, take a while for their minds to develop, acting more akin to clever animals when they are young. Eventually, their minds grow enough to become sapient, after which they tend to try to avoid other dragons outside of territorial disputes and mating. Being the large creatures they are, and having no natural predators, the dragons quickly learn to avoid one another due to limited resources and food. Mothers end up abandoning their children to survive on their own after hatching, for this reason as well, unable to sustain both themselves and their children.
See Also: Pactbound: Dragoons