Reign of Fire: Black Snorter

Common Name: Black Snorter
Scientific Name: Draco infernalis
Length: 55 feet
Wingspan: 50 feet
Adaptations: Thick horns, armored head and back, hypertrophied fire glands, flightlessness
Fire Type: Napalm breath

Diet: Carnivorous
Maturation: Adolescent male
Caste Function: Ground attack / defense

The black snorter is a fearsome dragon that is typically found in hills, ruins, and along coastlines. Whereas female jakyls metamorphose into flight-capable dragons, graceful and deadly, the males take a terrifying detour, transforming into monstrous creatures that lumber along the ground, spewing gouts of napalm not from their mouths, but from their nostrils.

Black snorters are adolescent male dragons, their maturation stunted chemically by the presence of both bulls and napalm-breathers. They are as big as adult females but are much more muscular, and their wings are too small to get them airborne; instead they walk on all fours, relying on extremely thick armor and their four massive horns to dissuade attacks from humans and other dragons. Black snorters also have bad tempers and can be incredibly aggressive, even to other dragons.

The fire glands of a black snorter are hypertrophied, swelling to give the animal’s head a distinctly triangular profile. Bony channels in the thick, armored palate direct fire out of the dragon’s nostrils instead of its mouth; why this inefficient adaptation even exists remains a mystery. This dragon caste can produce enormous amounts of napalm for their size, burning down entire forests and leaving fields scorched down to the root. Black snorters tend to be covered in ash and soot as a result. Killing a black snorter by rupturing these glands can result in an especially large – and gory – explosion.

Black snorters are loud and clumsy, and usually have to work in groups to corral their prey; much of their food is taken from scavenging the leftovers of other dragons. They pick over old battlefields like vultures, devouring the dead of both humans and dragons alike…and they don’t always wait until their prey is dead to start feeding. The black snorter is also the only dragon caste not repelled by the smell of their own dead; if anything, they’re attracted to it.