Dragons (Skyrim)

Dragons (Dovah, or Dov in plural) are a reptilian race from AkavirMysterious AkavirPocket Guide to the Empire, Third Edition: Other LandsThe Rise and Fall of the Blades that were once widespread throughout Tamriel. Although seeming rather beast-like, they are profoundly intelligent, capable of speech, written language, and comprehension of other languages.There Be Dragons Their spoken language can be used to cast powerful magic known as Thu'um or dragon shouts. They were virtually extinct until 4E 201, when they resurfaced in Skyrim with the return of Alduin the World-Eater in the form of a giant black dragon.
==Locations==
Dragons can attack anywhere outdoors in Skyrim and random encounters are scripted to take place after a certain amount of in-game time has passed without a Dragon appearance. Thus, fast traveling to an outdoor location is a reliable way to trigger a random Dragon encounter.
There are, however, certain locations where Dragons are scripted to appear. These locations are called dragon lairs that can be found all over Skyrim. In these locations Dragons are typically perched atop word walls that they are guarding.
The following is a list of dragon lairs:
*Ancient's Ascent
*Autumnwatch Tower
*Bonestrewn Crest
*Dragontooth Crater
*Eldersblood Peak
*Lost Tongue Overlook
*Mount Anthor
*Northwind Summit
*Saering's Watch 
*Shearpoint
*Skyborn Altar
;Other scripted events
These locations are not dragon lairs, but a dragon is guaranteed to be present.
*Outside the unmarked entrance to Bleak Falls Barrow. This location resets.
==Variants==
===Nameless dragons===
Nameless dragons 	Nameless dragons	Nameless dragons	Nameless dragons	Nameless dragons	Nameless dragons	Nameless dragons	Nameless dragons	Nameless dragons	Nameless dragons
Name 	Appearance 	Type 	Lvl1 	Enc2 	 	Shouts3 	Resist Fire 	Resist Frost 	Notes
Dragon 	 	Fire 	10 	1 	905 	
*Fire Breath
*Fireball	50% 	25% 	Brown-colored dragons; they are the first dragons encountered in and are the weakest.
Dragon 	 	Frost 	10 	1 	905 	
*Frost Breath
*Ice Storm	25% 	50% 	Brown-colored dragons; they are the first dragons encountered in and are the weakest.
Blood Dragon 	 	Fire 	20 	18 	1421 	
*Fire Breath
*Fireball
*Unrelenting Force	50% 	25% 	Green-colored dragons that have finned crowns and spade-like tails.
Blood Dragon 	 	Frost 	20 	18 	1421 	
*Frost Breath
*Ice Storm
*Unrelenting Force	25% 	50% 	Green-colored dragons that have finned crowns and spade-like tails.
Frost Dragon 	 	Frost 	30 	27 	1860 	
*Frost Breath
*Ice Storm
*Unrelenting Force	25% 	50% 	White and blue, ice-affiliated dragons with black-colored dorsal spines.
Elder Dragon 	 	Fire 	40 	36 	2255 	
*Fire Breath
*Fireball
*Unrelenting Force	50% 	25% 	Bronze-scaled dragons with arrow-shaped tails; second to Ancient Dragons.
Elder Dragon 	 	Frost 	40 	36 	2255 	
*Frost Breath
*Ice Storm
*Unrelenting Force	25% 	50% 	Bronze-scaled dragons with arrow-shaped tails; second to Ancient Dragons.
Ancient Dragon 	 	Fire 	50 	45 	3071 	
*Fire Breath
*Fireball
*Unrelenting Force	50% 	25% 	Red, black and orange-colored dragons; the most powerful dragon in the base game.
Ancient Dragon 	 	Frost 	50 	45 	3071 	
*Frost Breath
*Ice Storm
*Unrelenting Force	25% 	50% 	Red, black and orange-colored dragons; the most powerful dragon in the base game.
Revered Dragon 	 	Fire 	62 	59 	3511 	
*Fire Breath
*Unrelenting Force
*Drain Vitality	50% 	25% 	Orange-colored dragons introduced in ; second most powerful variant.
Legendary Dragon 	 	Fire 	75 	78 	4163 	
*Fire Breath
*Unrelenting Force
*Drain Vitality	50% 	25% 	Black, purple-colored; maximum level dragon introduced in Dawnguard; most powerful variant.
Legendary Dragon 	 	Frost 	75 	78 	4163 	
*Frost Breath
*Unrelenting Force
*Drain Vitality	25% 	50% 	Black, purple-colored; maximum level dragon introduced in Dawnguard; most powerful variant.
Serpentine Dragon	 	Frost 	58 	50 	3565 	
*Frost Breath
*Ice Storm
*Unrelenting Force	25% 	50% 	Blue-colored, snake-like dragon introduced in .
Serpentine Dragon	 	Fire 	58 	50 	3565 	
*Fire Breath
*Fireball
*Unrelenting Force	50% 	25% 	Blue-colored, snake-like dragon introduced in .
Skeletal Dragon 	 	Frost 	20 	10 	500 	
*Frost Breath
*Unrelenting Force	0% 	0% 	An undead dragon encountered in Labyrinthian during the quest "The Staff of Magnus."
===Named dragons===
These are dragons encountered throughout Skyrim. Essentially identical to random nameless dragons in terms of gameplay, these Dragons are usually encountered during the main quest with individual names and dialogue:
Named dragons	Named dragons	Named dragons 	Named dragons 	Named dragons 	Named dragons	Named dragons	Named dragons
Name 	Appearance 	Location 	Type 	Lvl 	 	Shouts 	Resistances
Alduin 	 	Sovngarde 	N/A 	PC×1.2 (10–100)	2355 	
*Fire Breath
*Frost Breath
*Unrelenting Force
*Dragon Fireball Shout
*Alduin's roar that summons a storm raining meteors down from the sky.	50% to all damage sources
Durnehviir 	 	Soul Cairn 	N/A 	20 	1821 	
*Frost Breath
*Drain Vitality
*Soul Cairn Summon	50%
Krosulhah 	 	Nchardak 	Frost dragon 	30–50 	1860–3071 	
*Frost Breath	50%
Kruziikrel 	 	Black Book: Waking Dreams 	Any type 	10–50 	905–3071 	
*Frost Breath
*Fire Breath	50%
Mirmulnir 	 	Western Watchtower, Whiterun Hold 	Any type 	10–50 	905–3071 	
*Frost Breath
*Fire Breath	50%
Naaslaarum 	 	Forgotten Vale 	Revered dragon 	10–62 	905–3511 	
*Drain Vitality	50%
Nahagliiv 	 	Rorikstead, Whiterun Hold 	Any type 	10 	3071 	
*Frost Breath
*Fire Breath	50%
Odahviing 	 	Dragonsreach, Whiterun, Whiterun Hold	Any type 	10–50 	905–3071 	N/A 	50%
Paarthurnax 	 	Throat of the World 	N/A 	10 	905 	
*Fire Breath
*Frost Breath	50%
Relonikiv 	 	Apocrypha 	Any type 	10–50 	905–3071 	
*Frost Breath
*Fire Breath	50%
Sahloknir 	 	Kynesgrove, Eastmarch 	Any type 	10–50 	905–3071 	
*Frost Breath
*Fire Breath	50%
Sahrotaar 	 	Apocrypha 	Serpentine dragon	58 	3565 	
*Frost Breath
*Fire Breath	50%
Viinturuth 	 	Anga's Mill, Eastmarch 	Any type 	10–50 	905–3071 	
*Frost Breath
*Fire Breath	50%
Voslaarum 	 	Forgotten Vale 	Revered dragon 	10–62 	905–3511 	
*Drain Vitality	50%
Vuljotnaak 	 	Whiterun-Falkreath Border 	Any type 	10–50 	905–3071 	
*Frost Breath
*Fire Breath	50%
Vulthuryol 	 	Blackreach 	Ancient dragon 	50 	3071 	
*Fire Breath
*Dragon Fireball Shout	50%
==Dragon Riding==
Dragon Riding is a feature added in that grants the ability to temporarily tame and ride Dragons. All three words of the Bend Will shout are required in order for it to work. When the shout is directed at a dragon, it will land and allow the Dragonborn to mount it. As soon as the dragon has been mounted, it will take to the skies. This introduces a new control scheme that allows the Dragonborn to command the dragon they are riding to attack targets.
==Loot==
*Dragon Bones 1–3
*Dragon Scales 1–3
*Dragon Heartscales (can be collected using Kahvozein's Fang)
*Gold, the amount depending on the dragon's level
*Precious gemstones
*Weapons and Armor, with a chance of being enchanted. (Revered and Legendary dragons have an increased chance of dropping Daedric weapons and Daedric armor).
==Strategies==
Click for a list of strategies
===Dragon behavior===
*A Dragon not engaged in combat will emit a distinctive "air rushing" sound while in flight.
*Dragons are Neutral enemies, meaning they are hostile towards all characters in the immediate area, and vice versa. However, sometimes dragons will not notice any enemies in the area at all and fly around nonchalantly. One may eventually become aware of nearby mobs and attack them, but if it does not encounter any enemies it eventually flies away.
*Dragons have numerous combat patterns. When they are first encountered, they will usually take advantage of their speed while in flight to sweep enemies on the ground with Shout attacks. Occasionally, they may also stop to hover in place, or land on the roof of a building and proceed to use a Shout, and then fly away for another attack. If the target is out of range for regular Shouts, the dragon will use a longer ranged Fire or Frost "ball" Shout which explodes on impact with a surface. When grounded, they become susceptible to close-ranged attacks, and their attacks consist of swinging their tails, using Shouts, and attempting to bite at an enemy with their jaws. If dragons successfully do enough damage to a player, they will perform a finishing move by grabbing half of the Dragonborn's body with their mouth, swinging them back and forth a couple of times, then launching them into the air.
*After a dragon has sustained enough damage, it may lose the ability to fly. If airborne when this happens it will crash land (in the nearest relatively open area), scarring the ground in the process.
*Any random dragon encounter may be avoided by entering another cell, such as a cave or ruins. Exiting out of a different entrance will always cause the dragon to vanish, whereas if the Dragonborn exits out of the same entrance, the dragon may still be waiting for them depending on how much time in-game was spent in the other cell.
*Dragons tend to pursue the Dragonborn over other targets, so moving away from a location can help save any characters there from being killed during a dragon attack.
===Defense===
*A Dragon can often be heard before it is seen. They roar on a regular basis and they make a distinctive sound when flying. This can be used to avoid or track them.
*If the player is a Vampire they are more resistant to ice, but vulnerable to fire, this might be good or bad depending of the dragons encountered, if the player is a Dunmer and a third level Vampire the Dragonborn will be very resistant to all elemental damage Dragons can produce.
*It is possible to find gear in game that protects against a percentage of elemental damage. This percentage stacks, so if the player has the right gear equipped it is possible to nullify up to 85% of elemental damage. Unfortunately, 100% resistance to any elemental damage is impossible.
**Dragon breath attacks are considered a magical attack, damage can be further reduced via magic resist, up to 85%.
**Spellbreaker can deflect the breath attack of any dragon up to ancient dragons without its ward breaking.
*As always, the player must be careful about their surroundings. Characters can accidentally wander in and get hit, turning them hostile.
*Using Dragonrend right before a dragon shouts will make the dragons shout disappear and also cause them to land. (Not true when fighting an Ancient Fire Dragon)
*Become Ethereal is helpful when the player has low health.
*Mages can conjure an Atronach of the same type as the dragon (Flame for fire breathing dragons, and Frost for frost breathing dragons). This takes advantage of both the Atronach's total resistance to its element and the Atronach's tendency to make a huge target of itself.
**Master of the Mind and Call to Arms can help keep the atronachs alive in melee range.
===Offense===
*With the correct perks and powerful weapons, Dragons can be instantly killed with sneak attacks from a melee weapon or bow.
*When landed, a dragon will let out a long roar when an attack causes it to reach 50% health (the same point where it can no longer fly). While doing its roaring animation, the dragon is incapable of attacking. Using the Slow Time shout can give the player enough time to finish it off before it even stops roaring.
*Shield bashing a dragon on the head will cause it to recoil its head and stop breathing fire or frost prematurely. Power attacks can give the same result, albeit less reliably.
*Distracting dragons with Shadowmere can be useful. Shadowmere is the toughest horse and can withstand the attacks and give the player time to kill dragons.
*Using the Marked for Death shout can make dragons a little less difficult to slay.
*Using weapons with drain magicka will eventually stop a Dragon from shouting.
*Mages can force any dragon to recoil over and over by spamming an Apprentice-level dual wielded Destruction spell like Firebolt with the Impact perk. This makes them easier to kill so long as a large pool of magicka has been obtained beforehand.
*Using Fire Breath on Dragons is extremely useful, as it drains a lot of health and does additional fire damage, and Frost Dragons receive more damage.
*Dragonrend, of course, does a lot of affects to Dragons. It slows the Dragon, and depending what type of dragon and words used, the Dragon gets weak, even slowing its ability to Shout.
*Dragonbane is very effective because of its dragon damage enchantment.
==Gallery==
Black-dragon.jpg|Dragon
Frost Dragon.png|Frost Dragon
Blood Dragon.png|Blood Dragon
Elder Dragon.png|Elder Dragon
Ancient Dragon.png|Ancient Dragon
Skeletal Dragon.png|Skeletal Dragon
Alduin 1.png|Alduin
Odah.jpg|Odahviing
Paarthurnaax.jpg|Paarthurnax
Dragonss.jpg|Odahviing in Dragonsreach, after being released.
Dragon-lying-down.png|A dragon lies on the floor at Dragontooth Crater.
==Achievements==
==Trivia==
*Dragons can only land on the ground if there is enough flat, open space. If a dragon refuses to land on the ground, consider moving somewhere more open. The dragon can also land on most buildings.
*Dragons can appear inside a walled city and attack various characters. If a quest-giver is killed, their quest may become unavailable.
*Despite the crafting material of Dragon Bones being very heavy, dragon skeletons are weightless. A Firebolt or similar kinetic spell may launch the skeleton into the sky.
*When a dragon is killed and characters are nearby, they will rush over to gawk at the corpse and the fact that the player has absorbed its soul.
*While a dragon corpse is burning, the effect can be seen from the world map.
*When a dragon is low on health, they may descend and crash into the ground, leaving a large trench behind.
*The Tsaesci tried to "eat" the dragons of Akavir. They enslaved the "Red Dragons," and the black ones fled to Po Tun. A war later left all the dragons of Akavir dead.
*Dragons cannot be soul trapped.
*As the Dragonborn continues with the main quest, dragon attacks tend to happen more often.
*In places where dragons are scripted to appear, such as Dragon Lairs, they can be found either perched on a cliff edge, word wall or sometimes even lying down on the ground.
*Although not a dragon lair, there is a scripted dragon appearance at the unmarked exit of Bleak Falls Barrow, overlooking Lake Ilinalta.
*The dragons depicted in Skyrim closely resemble the wyverns found in European mythology.
*Circling dragons have a very large detection radius compared to most other enemies and the Dragonborn needs to be much farther away from them to do things like wait, rest or fast travel.
==Bugs==
Click to show
*Several different spells are capable of launching dragon corpses if cast on a dead dragon. Spells that work include Raise Zombie, Ice Spike, and Magelight.
**A Wabbajack bolt is also capable of launching dragon corpses.
*Prior to patch 1.3, dragons had been known to become glitched into mountains and other textures, which caused them to fly backwards and spin around wildly.
*Skyrim can sometimes fail to render the dragon's texture, leaving the player to fight the untextured model. The texture will appear once the dragon is dead.
*In addition to the bug listed above, a dead, untextured Dragon may randomly fall from the sky. It is unknown why this occurs.
*Even when standing behind columns or large structures dragons perform their execution move, reaching through and grabbing the player in their mouth and tossing them aside for a one-hit kill. Likewise, dragon breath attacks such as Yol (Fire) and Fo (Ice) can usually damage the player through cover and obstacles if what the player is hiding behind is not thick enough. This is more common with higher level dragons and in the area of the College of Winterhold.
*Very rarely, when a dragon lands sometimes they will be stuck on the ground, despite having full health.
* In some instances, when two dragons are encountered simultaneously one may die instantly upon landing; however, in other cases, both are able to land without an issue.
*On a rare occasion a dragon has be seen flying around with full health and then fall to the ground and die.
*Prior to version 1.4* , dragons could get stuck in their out-of-combat flight animation (just straight flying, informal description) while fighting them. The direction they are stuck flying in is completely random, often they can be stuck ascending or even flying straight up, roaring and flailing their head about. During these glitches, the Dragon moves at a very slow speed. Reducing them to zero health may or may not break them out of this glitch. Also, they can even simply break out of the glitch after an apparently random amount of time has passed.
*Sometimes when a dragon is killed, it will not start to burn and the flesh remains on the dragon's corpse, and therefore does not yield a Dragon Soul. However, this may be intentional - see Help: dragons disintegrating This can happen more often with dragons at lairs than ones encountered randomly.
*Very rarely if two dragons spawn at the same time they may attack one another and upon one being defeated they will then attack other enemies such as other characters and the Dragonborn. This has only been seen between "Dragon" and no other dragon types such as Elder Dragon or Frost Dragon as of yet.
*After killing a dragon, a miscellaneous quest to "Return to Esbern" appears. However, speaking to him does not complete the quest.
*If a Dragon is vaporized via a shock spell, the sound effects for the soul absorption will not be heard. 
*On rare occasions, during a random dragon fight, a Dragon may suddenly lose its skin and become skeletal. The Dragonborn will even receive a Dragon Soul. The Dragon may become unkillable after the transformation.
*There is a possibility to turn any dragon into a skeletal dragon. To do so, the dragon must be killed from a distance, and before absorbing the Dragon Soul, use resurrect console command. And when the dragon is brought back to life, the Dragon soul can be absorbed, but the skin and scales will melt away. The Dragonborn must now fight the skeletal dragon.
==Appearances==
* 
* 
*
* 
* (as aspect of Akatosh)
*
**
**
* 
** (Skeleton)
** (Bone Dragon)
**
**
**
*
*
==References==
de:Drachen (Skyrim)
es:Dragón (Skyrim)
fr:Dragons (Skyrim)
it:Draghi
nl:Draak/Skyrim
pl:Smok (Skyrim)
pt:Dragões (Skyrim)
ru:Дракон
tr:Skyrim'in Ejderhaları
uk:Дракон (Skyrim)
*