Magma Drake

A plated volcanic dragon that nests in the Emberthrone's warm vents and crosses the lava shore to feed when the mountain drives smaller beasts outward.

A magma drake is black-plated and low to the ground, with a furnace-red throat and two broad forelimbs used to vault cracks in a cooling flow. It does not live in molten rock. It survives in basalt tubes beside it, where the heat keeps its eggs soft enough to hatch. Drakes eat lava-skimmers, emberbacks, and ash-hounds, and lick sulfur salts from vent walls between hunts. The oldest claims the caldera rim and grows a crown of fused glass over its shoulders. Ashwalkers call that animal the Emberthrone Drake and read its descent as a practical warning that a new vent has opened above.