Hopian met with Doran the Dragonlover when he was travelling around Deltora to write his book, Secrets of Deltora. The Opal dragon told him that he was the last of his tribe. His father, the oldest Opal dragon, had died of natural causes three months earlier and all the others had been killed by the Ak-Baba's genocide. Hopian also informed Doran that he had seen a Ruby dragon killed two days prior to that point, and that his tribe had sensed evil in the city of Hira for some time.