Fire

Wyvern · Type of Dragon — Legendary two-legged, winged reptilian creature

The wyvern is the two-legged, bat-winged dragon of medieval European heraldry and folklore, named from Old English 'wivere' (viper) — itself from Latin 'vipera' — and distinguished from the four-legged Western dragon by the absence of forelegs (the wings serve as arms) and by a long barbed tail terminating in an arrow-shaped venomous sting. The heraldic form was codified in late twelfth-century Anglo-Norman heraldry under Henry II, and Juliana Berners's 'Boke of Saint Albans' (1486) is the first English manual to set the wyvern apart from the four-footed dragon as a distinct heraldic beast. The Welsh red dragon Y Ddraig Goch became an official badge of the Tudor dynasty after the battle of Bosworth in 1485, and nineteenth-century English heralds harmonised it with the four-legged form as a 'four-footed wyvern'. The same silhouette has been adopted in J.R.R. Tolkien's Fell Beasts in 'The Lord of the Rings' (1954-55), the wyverns of FromSoftware's 'Dark Souls' (2011), the Rathalos line of Capcom's 'Monster Hunter' series (2004- ), the dragons of 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim' (2011), and the dragons of HBO's 'Game of Thrones' (2011-2019).

Tolkien's Gold-Hoarding Fire Dragon

Smaug — also styled the Golden, the Magnificent, the Tremendous — is the gold-greedy fire-drake of J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit, or There and Back Again' (George Allen & Unwin, London, 1937) and the direct visual template for every modern fantasy dragon that sleeps on a hoard. He is a great crimson-scaled, bat-winged, two-legged fire-drake (so, strictly by the heraldic taxonomy, a wyvern), who descended on the Dwarf kingdom of Durin's Folk under the Lonely Mountain (Erebor) around the year 2770 of the Third Age, slaughtered Thrór's line, drove out the survivors and lay down on the looted hoard — including the Arkenstone of Thráin. About one hundred and seventy years later, in the events of 'The Hobbit', the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, thirteen Dwarves under Thorin Oakenshield and the wizard Gandalf travel to the mountain; Bilbo's conversation with Smaug in chapter twelve ('Inside Information') reveals the single bare patch over Smaug's left breast. A thrush carries the secret to Bard the Bowman of Esgaroth, whose ancestral Black Arrow strikes the spot, and Smaug falls dead into the Long Lake. His death triggers the Battle of the Five Armies that ends the novel.

The Tyrant of Flame

The Red Dragon is the apex of the five chromatic (evil) dragons in Dungeons & Dragons and the most iconic dragon image of Western fantasy. Introduced as the volcanic, mountain-dwelling apex in the 1974 D&D original boxed set's 'Monsters & Treasure' booklet by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, it has been locked to Chaotic Evil alignment since the 1977 AD&D Monster Manual. In the 2014 fifth-edition Monster Manual an Adult Red Dragon is 25 to 30 metres long, challenge rating 17, with a sixty-foot cone of fire breath dealing 18d6 damage, while the Ancient Red Dragon is CR 24 with a ninety-foot cone and 26d6 damage. The modern canonical image is Smaug from J.R.R. Tolkien's 'The Hobbit' (1937) — the crimson dragon coiled on the treasure-heap of the Lonely Mountain (Erebor) — and the AD&D colour-coded taxonomy is widely held to take Smaug as its direct visual template. The same lineage carries through Takhisis, the Dark Queen of Dragonlance, the Shivan Dragon of 'Magic: The Gathering' (1993- ) and the Ancient Red Dragon encounters of Baldur's Gate 3 (2023).

Logi — Spirit of the Consuming Flame

Logi (Old Norse Logi, 'flame, fire') is the decisive canonical personification of the natural flame called 'flame itself' in Norse mythology, the decisive canonical spirit belonging to the giant race Jotnar of fire. The etymology is the decisive canonical vocabulary derived from the Old Norse logi ('flame, fire'), and despite phonetic similarity, it is the decisive canon completely different from the trickster god Loki (Loki). The decisive textual canon is the decisive canonical episode in chapters 46-47 of Gylfaginning (Gylfaginning) of the Prose Edda (Prose Edda) of c. 1220 — not Skaldskaparmal — of the early 13th-century Icelandic poet-historian Snorri Sturluson (Snorri Sturluson, 1179-1241), in which Thor (Thorr) and Loki (Loki) are tested at the palace of the giant king Utgarda-Loki (Utgarda-Loki), and in the eating contest between Loki and Logi — when Loki had eaten all the flesh of the meat, Logi had swallowed not only the flesh but the bones and the trough itself — Logi won — the decisive mythological canon. This episode is the decisive mythological allegory of the natural law 'fire burns everything (loginn brann ut)', and the canonical revelation at the end of the episode by Utgarda-Loki — that what they saw was an illusion and Logi was 'wildfire (villieldr)' — that is, the wild natural flame itself.

Small Flame Spirit Dwelling in Embers

The Cinder Sprite (English Cinder Sprite, Latin Spiritus Cineris) is the small flame spirit that dwells in the cinder (ash-ember), depicted as a palm-sized winged humanoid — a decisive canonical adaptation of Western flame-spirit iconography. The etymology combines the Latin cinis ('ash, cinder'), source of English cinder (Middle English sinder of c. 1290), and the Latin spiritus ('soul, breath'), source of English sprite (Middle English sprite of 1303 via Old French esprit). The iconographic origin is the fusion of (1) the ancient Roman household-hearth (focus) protective beliefs of Lar (household guardian) and Vesta (hearth goddess) and (2) the four-element-spirit canon in the 1566 Latin treatise A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders (Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris) by the Swiss physician-alchemist Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541), whose flame spirit is the Salamander. The decisive literary canon is the sprite Puck of William Shakespeare's (1564-1616) 1595 comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream — Robin Goodfellow of English folklore — which established the English-literary sprite canon, and the Fire Mephit and Salamander canon of the 1977 Monster Manual of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) by Gary Gygax (1938-2008) of TSR in the USA is the decisive iconography of the modern fantasy RPG flame-spirit canon.

Suzaku · 朱雀 — Sacred Red Bird of the South

The Suzaku (Chinese Zhuque, Japanese Suzaku, Korean Jujak) is the decisive canonical iconographic figure of the sacred red bird guarding the south in the Four Symbols (Four Guardian Spirits) thought of East Asia. The etymology is the compound of the Chinese characters Zhu ('vermilion, red') and Que ('sparrow, bird') — meaning 'vermilion-coloured bird' — the decisive canonical vocabulary. The Four Symbols are the Azure Dragon (Qinglong) of the east, the Vermilion Bird (Zhuque) of the south, the White Tiger (Baihu) of the west, and the Black Tortoise (Xuanwu) of the north, guarding the four directions, four elements (wood, fire, metal, water), and the southern 7 of the 28 lunar mansions — Jing, Gui, Liu, Xing, Zhang, Yi, Zhen — the decisive canonical iconography. The decisive textual canon is Book of Rites (Liji) Quli Shang of the 2nd-century-BCE Former Han — the four-directional military banner canon — and Shiji Book 27 Tianguanshu of Sima Qian (Sima Qian, 145-86 BCE) of the late 1st century BCE — the 28 lunar mansions astronomical classification — the decisive Han-Chinese canon. The decisive visual canon is the Four Symbols mural of the late-6th-century Goguryeo Gangseo-daemyo Tomb (Gangseo-daemyo, Pyeongan-namdo, Korea) — c. 575-605 — and the Four Symbols murals of the 7th-8th-century Japanese Takamatsuzuka Tomb (Takamatsuzuka kofun, discovered 21 March 1972) and Kitora Tomb (Kitora kofun, discovered 7 November 1983).

Fire Spirit of Paracelsus

The Salamander (Latin Salamandra, Greek salamandra, English Salamander) is the decisive canonical spirit of fire (Ignis) among the four element spirits (Elemental Spirits) in the posthumous 1566 Latin treatise A Book of Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders (Liber de Nymphis, Sylphis, Pygmaeis et Salamandris) by the Swiss physician-alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541), a small spirit in the form of a salamander wholly enveloped in flame, dwelling in the hearth and furnace, canonised as the decisive guardian spirit of the blacksmith and the alchemist. The iconographic origin is (1) the canonical record in Book 5, Chapter 19 of the Historia Animalium of the fourth-century BCE Greek philosopher Aristotle (Aristoteles, 384-322 BCE), that the salamandra walks through fire and extinguishes it, and (2) the canonical misunderstanding in Book 10, Chapter 86 of the Natural History (Naturalis Historia) of the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus, 23-79 CE) of 77 CE, that the salamandra is born by fire. The decisive canon is the four-element-spirit theory of Paracelsus of 1566 — Undine (Water), Sylph (Air), Gnome (Earth), and Salamander (Fire) — by which the Salamander became the decisive canon of the European Renaissance fire spirit. The Salamander monster of the 1977 D&D Monster Manual by Gary Gygax (1938-2008) of TSR in the USA — consistent through to 5e (5th Edition) of 2014 — is the decisive canon of the modern fantasy RPG fire spirit.

Fire Dragon of Beowulf and Norse Myth

The Fire-drake (Old English fyrdraca, English fire-drake) is the decisive canonical name for the fire-breathing dragon (draca) of Old English and Norse mythology. The etymology is the combination of the Old English fyr ('fire') and draca (borrowed from the Latin draco and Greek drakon, 'dragon'), the Old form of English dragon. The decisive textual canon is the canon in lines 2200-3182 of Book 3 of the Old English epic Beowulf (3,182 lines in total) by an anonymous author of the 8th-10th centuries — in which the hero Beowulf, in his old age after ruling the Geat kingdom for fifty years, when a thief steals the treasure of a sleeping fire-drake — the dragon devastates the Geat kingdom with fire — Beowulf, with his loyal retainer Wiglaf, slays the dragon but dies from the dragon's venom. The Beowulf single manuscript — the Nowell Codex (Cotton Vitellius A.xv at the British Library) copied around the year 1000 — is the decisive textual canon, and the Smaug of The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), published in Britain on 21 September 1937 — the fire-drake guarding the treasure under the Lonely Mountain — is the decisive modern adaptation of the global fantasy fire-dragon canon of the twentieth century, and the Red Dragon (fire breath) of the 1977 D&D Monster Manual by Gary Gygax of TSR in the USA — consistent through to 5e (5th Edition) of 2014 — is the decisive canon of the modern fantasy RPG fire-dragon.

Spirit Form of the Immortal Phoenix

The Phoenix Spirit (Greek Phoinix, Latin Phoenix, English Phoenix) is the canonical iconographic figure of the immortal flame-bird — adapting the Egyptian Bennu (Bennu) and the Greek Phoenix tradition into the spirit category — that immolates itself every 500 or 1000 years and is reborn from the ashes. The etymology is presumed from the Greek Phoinix (Greek 'crimson' or 'Phoenician bird'), and the bennu ('the one that rises') of ancient Egypt — the canonical sacred bird of the resurrection of the sun god Ra and Osiris of Heliopolis — is the decisive origin of the Greek Phoenix iconography. The decisive textual canon is Chapter 73 of Book 2 of the Histories (Historiai) of the Greek historian Herodotus (Herodotus, c. 484-425 BCE) of the 5th century BCE — the testimony of Egyptian priests of seeing the Phoenix at the Sun Temple of Heliopolis and the canon that every 500 years the Phoenix comes from Arabia to Heliopolis carrying the corpse of its father Phoenix in a myrrh egg — the decisive canon, and the decisive Latin-literary canon is the canon of lines 392-407 of Book 15 of the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCE - 17 CE) of c. 8 CE — the 1000-year cyclic self-immolation and rebirth from the ashes — the decisive canon. The decisive modern canon is the Headmaster Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes of the Harry Potter (Harry Potter) series of the British author J. K. Rowling (J. K. Rowling, b. 1965) of 1997-2007 — first appearing in Chapter 12 of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets of 1998 — the decisive culminating work of the 21st-century global Phoenix canon.

Kagutsuchi · 軻遇突智 — King of the Destructive Flame

Kagutsuchi (Kagutsuchi, Hi-no-Kagutsuchi) is the decisive canonical fire god of Japanese mythology. The etymology is the Japanese compound of kagu ('shining, radiant') and tsuchi ('spirit, soul') — meaning 'shining soul' — the decisive canonical vocabulary, and the alias Hi-no-Kagutsuchi ('fire Kagutsuchi') indicates that he is the embodiment of fire — the decisive canon. The decisive textual canon is the Volume 1 of the Kojiki (Kojiki) — the oldest extant Japanese historical chronicle compiled by Ono no Yasumaro (660-c. 723) in the Nara period and presented to the 43rd Empress Genmei (Empress Genmei, 661-721) on 28 January 712 CE — the Japanese creation mythology — the decisive canon, in which the mother goddess Izanami (Izanami) dies of burns while giving birth to Kagutsuchi, and the enraged father god Izanagi (Izanagi) beheads Kagutsuchi with his Totsuka-no-Tsurugi (Totsuka-no-Tsurugi, ten-hand sword) — the decisive tragic mythological canon. The Nihon Shoki (Nihon Shoki) Volume 1 Age of the Gods Upper Chapter, presented by Prince Toneri (Prince Toneri, 676-735) to the 44th Empress Gensho in 720 CE, also decisively records this — the decisive canon. From Kagutsuchi's blood and corpse fragments, dozens of new gods were born — the decisive canon — and Kagutsuchi is enshrined at the Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha (Fujisan Hongu Sengen Taisha, Fujinomiya City, Shizuoka Prefecture) — the decisive Japanese volcano-faith canon.

Fire Jinn of Arab/Islamic Mythology

The Ifrit (Arabic ifrit, English Ifrit or Efreet) is the canonical iconographic figure of the powerful fire-jinn among the five-type classification of jinn — Jann, Jinn, Shaytan, Ifrit, Marid — in Arab-Islamic mythology. The etymology is the canonical vocabulary derived from the Arabic root ayn-F-R-T ('strong and evil, cunning'), and the canonical iconography depicts an Ifrit with a giant humanoid body wholly composed of flame — with distinct will and intelligence, more ferocious in disposition than other jinn. The decisive textual canon is verse 39 of Chapter 27 (An-Naml) of the Quran (Qur'an) revealed to the prophet Muhammad (Muhammad, c. 570-632) by the angel Gabriel c. 610-632 CE — in which when King Solomon (Sulayman) commanded the throne of the Queen of Sheba (Bilqis) to be brought, a powerful Ifrit (ifrit min al-jinn, 'an Ifrit of the jinn') volunteered, 'I will bring it to you before you rise from your place' — the decisive canon, and the Fisherman and the Ifrit canon of the One Thousand and One Nights (Alf Layla wa-Layla) compiled in the Mamluk dynasty of Arab Syria and Egypt in the 14th-15th centuries — the decisive Arabic-literary canon in which the Ifrit sealed by Solomon is released by the fisherman and tries to kill him — is the decisive canon. The decisive modern canon is the Efreeti of the D&D Monster Manual of 1977 by Gary Gygax (1938-2008) of TSR in the USA — consistent through to 5e (5th Edition) of 2014 — and the summoned beast Ifrit of Final Fantasy III (Final Fantasy III) by Square in Japan released on 18 December 1987 — the series-integrated canon — the decisive culminating work of the modern global Ifrit canon.

Agni — Sacred Messenger of the Flame

Agni (Sanskrit Agni) is the decisive canonical iconographic figure of the god of fire and the sacred messenger linking gods and humans in Indian Vedic mythology. The etymology is the Sanskrit agni ('fire'), derived from the Indo-European root h1ngnis ('fire'), cognate with the Latin ignis, the Lithuanian ugnis, and the Russian ogon ('fire') — the decisive canonical vocabulary. With the iconography of a polycephalic form having three heads and seven tongues — holding a torch and a ladle in both hands — and various sacred vehicles such as a ram, horse, and parrot — the decisive canonical iconography. The decisive canon is the c. 1500-1200 BCE Indian Vedic-era Rigveda (Rigveda) — Book 1.1 first hymn 'agnim ile purohitam' ('I praise Agni, the household priest') — the decisive canon. Among the 1,028 hymns in 10 books of the Rigveda, over 200 are dedicated to Agni — the most praised god after Indra (Indra) — and the decisive canonical mediator of the yajna (Vedic fire ritual), in which the offerings of humans to the gods (cows, grains, clarified butter, ghee) are burned by his flames and delivered to the gods — the cosmic decisive canonical iconography. In later Hinduism, the decisive canon of the southeastern guardian among the 8 directional guardians (Astadikpalas), and the Katen of Japanese Buddhism is the direct adoption of Agni.

Uriel · Archangel — Light of God, Angel of Wisdom and Repentance

Uriel (Hebrew Uri'el, Greek Ouriel, Latin Uriel, 'light of God') is the decisive canonical archangel of Jewish apocalyptic literature — apocrypha. The etymology is the decisive canonical vocabulary of the Hebrew compound of 'ur (light or flame)' and 'El (God)' — 'light of God' or 'fire of God'. The decisive textual canon is the apocryphal 1 Enoch (1 Enoch) 9:1, 10:1-8, 20:2, 21-22, and 33-36 of c. 3rd-1st century BCE — the decisive canon in which Uriel is one of the seven archangels or four archangels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel) — and the apocryphal 2 Esdras (2 Esdras, 4 Ezra) 4, 5, and 10 of c. 70-100 CE — the decisive canon in which Uriel taught Ezra (Ezra) the providence of God and the mysteries of the end of times. The decisive canonical iconography in which it was excluded from the Catholic canon at the Council of Rome (Council of Rome) of 745 but is considered the decisive canon in the Eastern Orthodox (Eastern Orthodox), Gnostic (Gnostic), and Christian-comparative traditions. The decisive canonical iconography of the angel holding a flaming sword or torch, the scroll of wisdom (scroll of wisdom), gold or crimson robes, and a shining flame on the forehead or hand.

Seraphim · Highest Order of the Nine Angelic Choirs — The Burning Ones Around God

Seraphim (Hebrew Səraphim, singular Saraph) is the highest rank of the 9 angelic hierarchies of Judeo-Christian angelology — the decisive canon — the decisive canonical iconographic figure of 'the burning ones' derived from the Hebrew saraph meaning 'to burn'. Aliases — burning ones, fiery angels, guardians of the throne, and together with the Cherubim the two closest ranks to God — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the decisive origin canon of the vision Isaiah saw in Isaiah (Isaiah) 6:1-7 of c. 8th century BCE in which 6-winged beings flew around God's throne crying 'Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory', and the decisive canon of the first rank of the 9-rank angelic hierarchy in The Celestial Hierarchy (De Coelesti Hierarchia) chapter 7 of Pseudo-Dionysius (Pseudo-Dionysius) of c. 5th-6th century CE. The decisive canon of the Summa Theologica (Summa Theologica) Part I question 108 article 5 of Thomas Aquinas (Thomas Aquinas) of the 13th century, and the decisive canon of the 6-winged Seraph vision and the stigmata (stigmata) of St. Francis of Assisi (St. Francis of Assisi) on Mount La Verna on 14 September 1224.

Asmodeus · Prince of Lust — Demon Who Destroys Marriages

Asmodeus (Hebrew Ashmedai, Greek Asmodaios, Latin Asmodaeus) is the great demon of lust, marriage destruction, and wrath of Jewish apocrypha and Christian tradition — the decisive canon, the decisive canonical iconographic figure derived from the Persian Zoroastrian Aeshma-daeva (Aeshma-daeva, 'wrath demon'). The etymology is the decisive canonical vocabulary of the Zoroastrian Avesta (Avesta) Aeshma (Aeshma, 'wrath') + daeva (daeva, 'evil god'), and the Hebrew Ashmedai (Ashmedai) and Greek Asmodaios are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the Book of Tobit (Book of Tobit) chapter 3 verse 8 of c. 200 BCE Jewish apocrypha — the decisive canon of the lust demon who killed Sarah's (Sarah) seven husbands on their wedding night — and chapter 3 verse 17, chapter 6 verses 14-18, and chapter 8 verses 1-3 — the decisive canon in which the archangel Raphael (Raphael) made Tobias (Tobias) burn fish liver and heart on incense, and the smoke drove Asmodeus away and Raphael bound him in upper Egypt. The Testament of Solomon (Testament of Solomon) chapter 5 of c. 1st-3rd century CE — the decisive canon of the lust towards Solomon's wife — and the Lesser Key of Solomon (Lesser Key of Solomon, Ars Goetia) of c. 17th century — the decisive canon as the 32nd king of the 72 demons.

Ares · Greek God of War and Slaughter

Ares (Ancient Greek Ares, Latin Mars) is the decisive canonical god of war, slaughter, and frenzy among the 12 Olympian gods of Greek mythology, and the decisive canonical iconographic figure as the son of Zeus (Zeus) and Hera (Hera), though even his parents disliked him. The etymology Greek Ares is the decisive canonical vocabulary meaning 'destruction', 'curse', or 'vengeance', and the aliases Enyalios (Enyalios, 'god of war'), Brotoloigos (Brotoloigos, 'plague of men'), Andreiphontes (Andreiphontes, 'man-slayer'), and Theoutios (Theoutios, 'of the god') are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive textual canon is the Theogony (Theogony) lines 921-923 of Hesiod (Hesiod) of c. 8th-7th century BCE — the decisive canon of the birth of Ares as son of Zeus and Hera — and the Iliad (Iliad) Book 5 lines 385-391 of Homer (Homer) of c. 8th century BCE — the decisive canon in which the giant brothers Otos (Otos) and Ephialtes (Ephialtes) of the Aloadae (Aloadae) imprisoned Ares in a bronze jar for 13 months — and Book 5 lines 846-863 — the decisive canon in which Diomedes (Diomedes), with the help of Athena (Athena), wounded Ares with his spear, and Ares screamed like the cry of 9000-10000 men.

Loki · Norse God of Mischief and Shape — The Trigger of Ragnarök

Loki (Old Norse Loki, 'knot or spider web') is the god of shape-shifting, cunning, fire, chaos, and the trickster of Norse mythology — the decisive canon, the decisive canonical iconographic figure as the son (Loki Laufeyjarson) of the giants Farbauti (Farbauti) and Laufey (Laufey), who became a member of Asgard (Asgard) by becoming a blood-brother of Odin (Odin) through a blood oath. The etymology is the decisive canonical vocabulary of the Old Norse Loki or 'knot (loop, knot)' or 'spider web (spider web)'. The decisive textual canon is the Prose Edda (Prose Edda) of c. 1220 of the early 13th-century Icelandic poet-historian Snorri Sturluson (Snorri Sturluson, 1179-1241) — chapters 33 (introduction), 34-35 (children), 42 (Asgard wall), 49 (death of Baldr), and 50 (binding) of Gylfaginning (Gylfaginning) — the decisive canon — and the Lokasenna (Lokasenna), Voluspa (Voluspa), and Thrymskvida (Thrymskvida) of the Poetic Edda (Poetic Edda) of the c. 1270 Codex Regius (Codex Regius) manuscript are the decisive poetic canon. The decisive canonical iconography in which with the giantess Angrboda (Angrboda) he produced three monster children — Fenrir (Fenrir, wolf), Jormungandr (Jormungandr, Midgard serpent), Hel (Hel, goddess of death) — and caused the death of Baldr (Baldr), igniting Ragnarok (Ragnarok).

Chimera · Monstrous hybrid — Mythical creature with combined animal traits

A composite monster of Greek myth — head of a lion, body of a goat (with a goat-head springing from the back), tail ending in a snake-head, and mouth spewing perpetual flame. First named in Homer's Iliad 6.179-183 (c. eighth century BCE) and given her parentage in Hesiod's Theogony 319-325 (c. 700 BCE) as the daughter of Typhon and Echidna, sibling of Cerberus and the Hydra. She laid waste to Lycia until the hero Bellerophon, riding the winged horse Pegasus, plunged a lead-tipped spear into her gullet; her own fire melted the lead, which seared her vitals (Apollodorus, Library 2.3.1). 'Chimera' has since become the common English noun for any composite or fantastic hybrid, and in biology the term chimerism (Hans Spemann, 1920s) denotes an organism with two distinct genotypes.

Phoenix · Firebird — Legendary bird reborn from flames

The Phoenix (Greek Phoinix, Latin Phoenix) is the immortal bird of ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman myth. At the end of a 500-year life (or, in alternative reckonings, the 1461-year Egyptian Great Year), it builds a nest of frankincense, cinnamon, and myrrh, sets itself alight upon it, and is reborn from its own ashes as a new young phoenix. The earliest Greek literary reference is in Herodotus, Histories II.73 (fifth century BCE), where the bird is associated with Heliopolis in Egypt; the bird's true root is the Egyptian Bennu, sacred to the sun god Ra at Heliopolis, a grey heron figured as the soul of Ra and the embodiment of the first light of creation. From Greco-Roman tradition the figure was taken up in 1 Clement 25, c. 96 CE, where the early Christian author cites the phoenix as a natural proof of the resurrection of Christ, and from there it became a standard image of Christian iconography. The Chinese fenghuang, Slavic Zhar-Ptitsa, and Persian Simurgh are distinct in origin but were later compared and conflated with the phoenix in nineteenth-century comparative mythology.

Dragonborn · Dragon-Kin — Warrior Race of Draconic Lineage

The dragonborn is a draconic humanoid race that descends from dragons, formally introduced as a player race in the Dungeons & Dragons fourth-edition Player's Handbook (Wizards of the Coast, June 2008) and standardised across the English-language fantasy mainstream by the fifth-edition Player's Handbook (2014). The earliest D&D antecedent is the 'Dragon-kin' of the 1990 AD&D 'Council of Wyrms' boxed set (TSR), with the half-dragon template of 'Races of the Dragon' (Wizards of the Coast, 2006) as a transitional form. Dragonborn stand 180 to 200 centimetres tall, weigh 90 to 110 kilograms, with a robust muscular build and scales in chromatic (red, blue, green, white, black — the line of Tiamat) or metallic (gold, silver, copper, bronze, brass — the line of Bahamut) colouring; they have a dragon's head with short horns and a hooked beak and stand upright without a tail. Fifth-edition racial traits are +2 Strength, +1 Charisma, Draconic Ancestry (the elemental damage type set by the parent dragon: fire for red and gold, cold for white and silver, lightning for blue and bronze, acid for black and copper, poison for green), a Breath Weapon (a fifteen-foot cone or thirty-foot line of the chosen damage, recharged on a short or long rest) and Damage Resistance to that same type. The fullest cultural canon is in 'Fizban's Treasury of Dragons' (2021), which paints dragonborn as warriors of clan honour descended from the dragon-gods Bahamut and Tiamat. The same iconography has been borrowed for the Dovahkiin of Bethesda's 'The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim' (2011), BioWare's 'Dragon Age: Inquisition' (2014), the Draconids of 'Magic: The Gathering' (from 1993) and the Dracthyr of Blizzard's 'World of Warcraft: Dragonflight' (2022).

Ruby· 紅玉 The core of the four cardinal gems

Ruby (English Ruby, Latin rubeus, Greek ánthrax, Sanskrit ratnaraj) is the heart of the four great gems of the decisive canon — derived from Latin 'rubeus (red)' and 'rubinus' — the decisive canonical vocabulary — the decisive mineralogical canon of the red variety of corundum (Al2O3) (with chromium content) — and the decisive Indian canon of Sanskrit 'ratnaraj (king of gems)'. Aliases — Ruby (Ruby), rubinus (rubinus, Latin), ratnaraj (ratnaraj, Sanskrit), ánthrax (ánthrax, Greek), carbunculus (carbunculus, Latin), king of gems, birthstone of July — are the decisive canonical vocabulary. The decisive natural history origin canon is the decisive canon of 'carbunculus is the stone of the light of fire' in Pliny the Elder's (Pliny the Elder, 23-79) Natural History (Naturalis Historia) Book 37 chapters 92-95 of the 1st century. The decisive Indian canon is the decisive canon of the king of gems in Sanskrit 'ratnaraj (रत्नराज ratnaraj)'.