The Red Death lives in a dormant volcano, having all other dragons bring food to feed it. The dragons drop off the food in the center of the volcano, leaving the food supplies with the Red Death. After eating, the Red Death emerges and dragons that get in its way are eaten, even if they have provided food. The Red Death has been shown to take malevolent parasitism to the extreme, for it has been shown to eat dragons who fail to bring food for it (most likely to make up for the food the eaten dragons failed to provide), which explains why the dragons greatly fear it, and none have tried to fight it (fearing that rebelling against the Red Death would result in becoming eaten), until Hiccup and his trained dragon, Toothless, conceive a plan.