Every animal on Medeavis runs from fire. One runs toward it. The Salamander of Medeavis attacks any flame it sees, whatever is standing next to it, and walks out of the blaze unharmed.

Made for the heat

It lives in the hottest place on the planet: the Amrak Desert, the volcanic coasts of the equator and the Twilight Oasis, where the ground can pass 80°C at midday. An adult is the size of a large alligator, two to two and a half meters long and up to 150 kilograms, black or dark gray with yellow-orange patches along the back. Glands along its flanks and tail coat the skin in a thick secretion that soaks up heat before it reaches the flesh. A membrane slides over its eyes when the fire gets close.

Drawn to the flame

Without fire, the Salamander is a careful hunter. It moves at night or at dawn, when the ground cools, and it avoids anything bigger than itself. A flame erases all of that. The moment it senses one, it charges, no matter the size of what stands in the way. Most likely it learned this in the volcanic zones, where fire often meant prey stunned by the heat. It makes no difference to the Salamander whether the fire is a lava flow or a traveler’s campfire.

Its protection has a limit. Long exposure, or a heat stronger than anything in its desert, can break through the secretion.

The fire that cannot be tamed

The people of Medeavis live at the poles, and few ever meet one: those who do are travelers pushing toward the equator, or the unlucky few a young Salamander finds as it wanders. In their stories it has a precise place. Opposite the Phoenix, the sacred fire that transforms and renews, the Salamander is the other fire: the one no one can tame. Some say the oldest ones, in the Twilight Oasis, have been seen in the same places for generations.

Its life cycle, regeneration and hunting are in the full entry.