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In General
- "Arabian Nights" Days: Their culture is the dragon equivalent of this trope. Treasure-filled palaces, street urchins, bustling open-air markets filled with everything from fruit to assassins- it's all there.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Averted; SandWings are not immune to their own venom. Therefore, their settlements are marked by gardens of brightsting cactus (its cure) or merchants that sell the plant's juice.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: Their tails are tipped with a venomous barb. One of the first things dragonets learn is how to keep it curled up so they won't accidentally scratch anyone, and brightsting cactus juice is sold in markets in case of accidents.
- Big Fancy Castle: The SandWing palace is a massive walled fort whose courtyard is big enough to hold armies from all of the tribes. After a few minutes of walking through the former, Sunny gives up on trying to memorize its layout, and there's so much space that nobody has yet bothered to clear out the old queen's taxidermy collection. As for "fancy", its aesthetic is "fantasy Persian", filled with mosaics, tapestries, and elaborate architecture built to accommodate its aerial inhabitants.
- Black Eyes of Evil: They all have black eyes with no pupils. Many of them are antagonists, but many others avert this by being heroic.
- Chameleon Camouflage: A step below RainWings. They can't change their scale colour, but pure-blooded SandWings are a pale yellow or peach that makes them almost impossible to see if they burrow into sand.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: A stereotype about them, according to Winter.
- Gold-Colored Superiority: Averted. Hybrid Sand/NightWings have scales deep gold like a harvest moon, but such dragons do not have either sides' poison-tipped tails or psychic powers. In strictly martial terms, they are weaker than their ancestors.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Instead of being "in the same boat", SandWings say that they're "in the same tent".
- Light Is Good: A common belief among SandWings. They don't need sunlight like the RainWings, but they really, really like it. The only part of the SandWing palace that isn't close to the sky is its dungeons.
- My Blood Runs Hot: SandWings exude a small amount of heat, enough that other dragons can feel it without touching them.
- The Needless: A downplayed example. SandWings are the toughest of the dragon tribes. They need much less food, can go longer without water, and endure extreme temperatures both hot and cold. That many SandWings still don't have enough to eat is a depressing commentary on how incompetent the rival queens are.
- Only the Chosen May Wield: Among the royal SandWing treasures is the Eye of Onyx, an animus-enchanted necklace that singlehandedly gives its chosen enough power to rule the kingdom. No soldiers or royal blood required. But if the Eye doesn't accept someone, they die instantly. Many "legitimate" heirs refuse to take the risk of wearing it, especially because just what the Eye's criteria is has been lost to time. Based on the events of The Brightest Night, being a good dragon is the only prerequisite. Being the sort of dragon who would be a good ruler- who can protect her subjects and make hard decisions- is not. Sunny realizes this when the Eye accepts her, and wisely chooses to give it to someone else. The Eye also allows this.
- Playing with Fire: They can breathe fire.
- Poisonous Person: They possess potent venom in a stinger on their tail.
- Super-Senses: Have enhanced sight and hearing.
- Theme Naming: Like all of the tribes. Sand Wings are normally named after desert features, such as rock formations, wind, animals, types of cacti, or things related to heat.
- Wretched Hive: Decades of war have turned the few SandWing towns into ramshackle slums filled with beggars, mutilated veterans, and assassins openly hawking their services. The Outclaws are trying to make things better (feeding starving dragonets, for one thing) but many SandWings are too distrustful to accept help.
Thorn
Queen Thorn
- Action Mom: She's Sunny's mom, Qibli's adoptive mom and a very powerful fighter.
- Amicable Exes: With Stonemover after The Brightest Night.
- Anger Born of Worry: When Qibli is hit by frostbreath in Darkness of Dragons, she screams at him not to faint.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: Is chosen by the Eye of Onyx to become the new Queen of the SandWings.
- Big "NO!": When she learns Morrowseer is dead she becomes so angry she literally spits fire. And kills a NightWing named Preyhunter.
- Dark Horse Victory: In the War of SandWing Succession.
- Dartboard of Hate: She has wanted pictures for Morrowseer and a younger Dune used for throwing sharp things at.
- Enemies List: Has compiled a list of dragons she wants revenge on - namely Morrowseer and Dune.
- Good Is Not Soft: She's the leader of a Wretched Hive, and while it was a lot worse before she and her "Outclaws" took over, she will resort to using fear to maintain order if necessary.
- The High Queen: She's a great queen that is beloved by all of the SandWings and is very personable with them, sitting among them at celebrations and gatherings rather than above them. Moon reads the thoughts of the SandWings at Jade Mountain and, except for Onyx, all of them are thankful she's the one that ended up being queen, rather than any of Oasis's daughters.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: She is noted to have a reputation for being an incorruptible dragon, which leads the Jade Mountain dragons to immediately determine she won't become the ally of Chameleon.
- I Never Got Any Letters: She was angry at Stonemover for never responding to her letters, but it turns out that Burn is in the business of intercepting everyone's letters.
- Just Like Robin Hood: She and her Outclaws turned a Wretched Hive into a refugee camp, taking from the rich and giving to the poor to ensure everyone has an even share.
- Mama Bear: When Sunny is kept prisoner by Burn, she responds by immediately invading Burn's fortress with her considerably smaller army of Outclaws. She also had a Dartboard of Hate with Morrowseer and Dune's faces on it, as she wanted to kill them for taking Stonemover and Sunny away from her.
- Missing Child: She has her infant daughter (who was still in her egg) stolen from her, by someone she thought she could trust. She searches for years to find her. This all happens in a Wretched Hive, during a civil war.
- Not So Above It All: Darkness of Dragons reveals that she has quite the sense of humor, despite her serious-ness in The Brightest Night.
- Offered the Crown: By Sunny, who gives her the Eye of Onyx.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Feels this way towards Morrowseer and Dune, so she is very angry when she finds out they are already dead
- Queen Of Thieves: She's the leader of the Outclaws. She later becomes an actual queen.
- Rags to Riches: Went from being the leader of a group of outlaws to the Queen of the SandWings in the space of one book.
- Roaring Rampage of Rescue: When Sunny is imprisoned in Burn's palace, about to be killed and stuffed, she charges in with all of her Outclaws against Burn's much larger army to rescue her.
- Storming the Castle: She and her outclaws storm Burn's palace to rescue Sunny.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: She curses a lot. Well, as close as you can come to it in a kids book.
- We Used to Be Friends: She used to be a friend of Dune's, but when he stole Sunny's egg she dedicated a lot of time to trying to find him so she could kill him.
Smolder
Prince Smolder
- Alliterative Family: Smolder and his brothers, Singe and Scald.
- Apologetic Attacker: Apologizes before he locks Sunny and Thorn in Burn's palace.
- Cannot Convey Sarcasm: It's hard for dragons to tell whether he's being serious or sarcastic when he talks.
- Deadpan Snarker: He spends much of his time snarking about Burn and his life, but tries to keep it very much deadpan and subtle so Burn won't pick up on it and have him executed.
- Half-Identical Twins: He looks very similar to Blister and they are from the same hatching.
- Human Pet: He has one, and is sending Vermilion letters of advice on how to keep them.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: With Palm.
- Trapped in Villainy: He's forced to stay as Burn's prison guard because if he disobeys her, he'll be executed like his brothers.
Viper
Viper
- Beware My Stinger Tail: She has a poisonous tail tip like all SandWings, but she has a particular tendency of brandishing it all of the time.
- Dark Action Girl: She fights a lot, including against her fellow alternate dragonets.
- Evil Counterpart: She's Sunny's replacement, and is much more aggressive and less enthusiastic about the prophecy.
- Mutual Kill: Poisons Flame before he accidentally throws her into the volcano during their fight. Subverted because Starflight and Fatespeaker manage to get Flame a brightsting cactus through the tunnel before he can die from the poison.
Oasis
Queen Oasis
- Dragon Hoard: She presided over the SandWing treasure, which was once the largest treasure in Pyrrhia.
- Eye Scream: She was killed by being stabbed in the eye with a spear.
- Intro-Only Point of View: In The Brightest Night.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Her death started the events of the book series.
- Posthumous Character: She died 20 years before the start of the series.
- Sound-Only Death: In Deserter, Six-claws doesn't actually witness her death but just hears a lot of horrific roaring coming from the palace area.
- Tempting Fate: Her thoughts in the prologue of The Brightest Night show her wondering what a few scavengers could possibly do to her.
Jerboa
Jerboa
- Abusive Parents: Didn't start out as this, but eventually began using animus magic to change anything she didn't like about Boa.
- The Archmage: She was one of the greatest animus dragons of her time and figured out a great deal about how it worked over her life.
- And I Must Scream: Jerboa III cursed her to be frozen in a block of ice and kept below her hut forever.
- Court Mage: She was this to the SandWing queen Scorpion before she fled the kingdom in response to her ever-increasing demands, which included making her live longer and healing her, crafting the Eye of Onyx so that Scorpion's line would always rule the Sand Kingdom, and doing something to the SkyWings. While Jerboa rebelled a little with the Eye, making it so that it would only allow those who it judged worthy to be Queen, commoner or royal, she outright refused to follow Scorpion's orders with the SkyWings and fled the kingdom to go into hiding.
- Dying Curse: Before Boa freezes her in a block of ice, she curses her to never be able to use her animus magic without losing a part of her body in exchange, leaving wounds that will never heal.
- Early-Bird Cameo: She was mentioned once in Darkstalker as an animus dragon serving Queen Scorpion of the SandWings who later disappears, and then again in Darkness of Dragons when it's revealed she created the Eye of Onyx, but it takes until The Dangerous Gift for her to actually appear.
- Evil Sorcerer: She was originally Queen Scorpion's personal animus, but slid into this over the course of her long life. Along with her abuse of Jerboa, she would sometimes enchant other dragons to be their servants.
- Helicopter Parents: She was very controlling of Boa and what she wanted out of her, often enforcing what she would do with magic.
- Immortality: She lived around Darkstalker's time and made herself immortal, living 1,100 years past that time before Boa got rid of her.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: She was careful with her animus powers at first, trying not to be evil, but as her life went on and she used her powers more and more, she gradually forgot about being careful with them and abused her "daughter", and even enchanted other dragons to be servants to the pair.
- The Kingslayer: Sixty years after she fled the Sand Kingdom, she murdered Queen Scorpion with a magically-induced heart attack.
- Walking Spoiler: Much like her daughter, her role in the story is extremely important to the third arc.
Jerboa III
Jerboa III
- Clone Angst: When she was little (the first time), she expressed dissatisfaction with her also being named Jerboa. While she was with her mother, she preferred to be called Boa.
- Designer Babies: In the most literal sense. Her mother would constantly change things about her she didn't like, making her more loving, less argumentative, able to cook, like cooking, able to dance and sing, and also repeatedly wiping her memory and changing her back into a dragonet.
- Early-Bird Cameo: She appears for a brief instant in Talons of Power when Darkstalker teleports every animus in Pyrrhia to his throne room. Luckily he's facing away from her and doesn't see her, giving her the time she needs to teleport out.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Her situation reads out like the worst kind of Helicopter Parents scenario you can ever imagine.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Subverted. While she lives alone and apart from any other dragons and prefers her solitude now, she has had friends over the years, until paranoia about her being unable to use her animus magic wisely drove her to stay in her hut. Her most recent friend was Queen Glacier.
- Only Friend: She had a few over her (very long) life, but the original Jerboa made her forget them. After she killed her mother and broke free of her control, Queen Glacier became this to her, even surprising Jerboa when she revealed her un-glamored self to her when Glacier cried in sympathy and told her how unfair it was that she had to suffer so much.
- Our Homunculi Are Different: She's essentially a clone of the original Jerboa formed from a lizard egg and turned into a SandWing.
- Power at a Price: As a last "screw you", the original Jerboa managed to cast a spell on her daughter before being frozen and entombed under the beach. Whenever Jerboa III would cast a spell, she would lose a part of herself in a painful manner. She lost several claws over the years and the spell to break animus magic cost her tail barb.
- Pygmalion Snapback: At first she seems like an obedient child to Jerboa I. That is, until she finds the list of all the changes she's made to her over 2000 years.
- Walking Spoiler: Reading up on her would spoil the reason behind the loss of animus magic.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Her mother made her immortal, which she is very tired of by the time she appears.
Six-Claws
Six-Claws
- A Day in the Limelight: In Deserter.
- Extra Digits: He has six claws on each forelimb instead of five, hence his name. Apparently whenever he told another dragon his name they would instinctively look down to check.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Dune.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: To Burn. It's why the NightWings want to get rid of him. Downplayed in that when Burn decides to try to force the MudWings to her side against Six-Claws' orders it actually works, and she's shown to be utterly cruel and more than a bit rash but not the complete idiot Blaze is.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Why he initially works for Burn. Even he eventually becomes too disillusioned with the war and her cruelty to continue any longer, though.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Deserts Burn's army for the Outclaws along with Dune due to Deathbringer's influence and what Burn did to Dune.
Saguaro
Ostrich (Six-Claws' daughter)
Ostrich (Six-Claws' daughter)
- Dead Guy Junior: Presumably named after Ostrich, her paternal grandmother.
Addax
Addax
- The Mole: He is an outlaw who's really working for Burn.
Char
King Char
- Authority in Name Only: Like most Kings, Char only had as much political power as his wife Oasis allowed it.
- Family Theme Naming: His daughters' names begin with 'B', while his sons' names begin with 'S'.
- Killed Offscreen: Dies along with Quicksand due to a sickness during a Time Skip in Deserter.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: He mentions being Blaze's father after she is whining to him that he's not her boss. Everyone in-story knows it, but it counts as this for the readers.
- Minor Major Character: He's Burn, Blister, and Blaze's father and the king of the SandWings, but his importance in Oasis' court varies depends on what Oasis feels about him at the moment and he dies fairly early into Deserter.
Ostrich
Ostrich (Six-Claws' mother)
- Action Mom: She's Six-Claws' mother and also one of Oasis' most respected royal guards who is a very competent fighter.
- Good Parents: It is noted that thanks to her and Quicksand, Six-Claws is one of the rare dragons who has a happy childhood.
- Killed Offscreen: Is killed in battle after a Time Skip in Deserter.
Quicksand
Quicksand
- Good Parents: It is noted that thanks to him and Ostrich, Six-Claws is one of the rare dragons who has a happy childhood.
- Killed Offscreen: Dies of a sickness along with Char after a Time Skip in Deserter.
- Non-Action Guy: Unlike Ostrich, he doesn't have a role as a guard but is instead the royal chef.
Scald
Prince Scald
- Alliterative Family: Scald and his brothers, Smolder and Singe.
- The Casanova: He has three girlfriends, though he doesn't take any of them too seriously.
Singe
Prince Singe
- Alliterative Family: Singe and his brothers, Scald and Smolder.
Horizon
Horizon
- Red Shirt: His only purpose is to be killed to show how powerful Peril is.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Is killed pretty quickly only to show Peril's power.
Onyx
Princess Onyx
The daughter of Prince Smolder and his long lost love Palm.- Psychic Block Defense: Like Turtle, she is completely unreadable by NightWing psychics because of her skyfire.
- Rightful King Returns: Subverted. She thinks that her royal blood gives her the right to usurp Thorn and jail whoever she wants, but in reality everyone recognizes her as an arrogant, ignorant brat who has no business being anywhere near power.
Meerkat
Meerkat
- Mr. Exposition: He introduces the main characters to Possibility and explains things about the town.
Cobra
Cobra
The abusive mother of Qibli, Rattlesnake and Sirocco; an accomplished assassin.- Blatant Lies: As the Outclaws are locking her away, she does her utmost to act like a caring mother who Qibli is betraying- the fact that she sold him be damned.
- Character Tics: She always eats roasted seeds before undertaking a job.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Having no appreciation of real love, she cannot fake it well enough to deceive Qibli.
Rattlesnake and Sirocco
Rattlesnake and Sirocco
- Inadequate Inheritor: Vulture deliberately made Cobra keep them (and Qibli) around to see who might be the one to inherit his criminal empire. From what we hear, neither of them fit the bill.
- Small Role, Big Impact: In their short appearance, they manage to set off a chain of events that leads to Foeslayer flying away, Winter nearly being killed and the rest of Jade Winglet and Peril finding out that Turtle is an animus.
