Jawnomicon

Salamander

Also called Fire Salamander, Salamandra.

In medieval European and alchemical tradition, the Salamander is the elemental spirit of fire, a lizard-like being said to live within flame and remain wholly unburned by it.

At a glance

Tradition
European folklore (general)
Region
Europe (place of origin)

Traits

Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.

Form

  • Serpentine elongated body
    why

    sometimes with a serpentine or dragon-like elongation in heraldic art

  • Corrosive venom secretion
    why

    In some tellings its venomous secretions, rather than any fire power, are the creature's true danger to those who handle it.

Sight and sound

  • Body wreathed in flames
    why

    In appearance the Salamander is consistently rendered as a small lizard or newt-like form, often shown wreathed in or composed of flame, sometimes with a serpentine or dragon-like elongation in heraldic art.

Defensive powers

  • Fire immunity
    why

    Its defining nature is a total invulnerability to fire: in some tellings it lives inside flames the way fish live in water, feeding on fire itself or emerging from burning wood unharmed, and its skin or secretions were held by natural philosophers to be so cold and moist that they could smother flame on contact.

Roles

Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.