Created with extensive input from my lore abiding citizen, the littlest guy I know, Huon Croucher

Hundreds of millions of years ago, when the Australian continent pulsed with molten fire, the Earth gave birth to ancient spirits. They sculpted life not with gentle hands, but with eruptions that split mountains with rivers of lava. Their creations — small, flame-tempered critters — thrived in the inferno. But when the seas rose to drown the land, the spirits spent their last embers shielding their favoured critters, then sank into the asthenosphere to dream.