Elemental: War of Magic - Fallen Enchantress Developer Journal

In the latest developer journal to hit the official Elemental: War of Magic website, Fallen Enchantress lead designer Derek Paxton talks about the work they've put into the add-on's world while also profiling a few of its unique locations.
The Temple of the Dragon is a unique location, guarded by a unique red dragon and allows the player to recruit red dragons if it is controlled. The Pillar of Mascrinthus counts as 3 earth shards and Iru T'Alavar significantly increases the rate nearby cities grow.

And we have monster lairs. I always hated that you couldn't have big scary monsters in the game from the beginning, now we do. Dragons are fairly rare, but there may be a lair or two out there. Darkling and bandit camps are more common along with bear dens, ogre lairs, troll caves, places infested with spiders and shrill. These are especially common in forests and swamps.

Monsters typically won't leave their lairs, so it's up to the player to decide if he wants to attack them or not. The exception is that if a player's influence spread over a monster lair, that monster is freed. So it's fine to have a dragon living over a hill from your empire. But if you plant a city down beside him, don't expect it to last for long.

Wandering monsters that are more appropriate to the player's power still exist (and they get tougher depending on how long the game has gone on, not based on the techs discovered) and eventually can spawn ogres, umberdroths and dragons. But in the beginning expect to see less powerful monsters wandering around and the more powerful in lairs.