Dragons (Skyrim)

For other uses, see Dragons.

"Most Nords of Skyrim believed Dragons were only a legend. Until now."

Dragons (Dovah, or Dov in plural) are a reptilian race from Akavir 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.^[1] 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.

Variants

Common dragons

Dragon: Brown-colored dragons; they are the first dragons encountered in Skyrim and are the weakest.
Blood Dragon: Green-colored dragons that have finned crowns and spade-like tails.
Frost Dragon: White and blue, ice-affiliated dragons with black-colored dorsal spines.
Elder Dragon: Bronze-scaled dragons with arrow-shaped tails; second to Ancient Dragons.
Ancient Dragon: Red, black and orange-colored dragons; the most powerful dragon in the base game.
Revered Dragon: Orange-colored dragons introduced in Dawnguard; second most powerful variant.
Legendary Dragon: Black, purple-colored; maximum level dragon introduced in Dawnguard; most powerful variant.
Serpentine Dragon: Blue-colored, snake-like dragon introduced in Dragonborn.

Common dragons
Name	Appearance	Type	Lvl¹	Enc²		Shouts³	Resist Fire	Resist Frost
Dragon		Fire	10	1	905	Fire Breath Fireball	50%	25%
Dragon		Frost	10	1	905	Frost Breath Ice Storm	25%	50%
Blood Dragon		Fire	20	18	1421	Fire Breath Fireball Unrelenting Force	50%	25%
Blood Dragon		Frost	20	18	1421	Frost Breath Ice Storm Unrelenting Force	25%	50%
Frost Dragon		Frost	30	27	1860	Frost Breath Ice Storm Unrelenting Force	25%	50%
Elder Dragon		Fire	40	36	2255	Fire Breath Fireball Unrelenting Force	50%	25%
Elder Dragon		Frost	40	36	2255	Frost Breath Ice Storm Unrelenting Force	25%	50%
Ancient Dragon		Fire	50	45	3071	Fire Breath Fireball Unrelenting Force	50%	25%
Ancient Dragon		Frost	50	45	3071	Frost Breath Ice Storm Unrelenting Force	25%	50%
Revered Dragon ^DG		Fire	62	59	3511	Fire Breath Unrelenting Force Drain Vitality	50%	25%
Legendary Dragon ^DG		Fire	75	78	4163	Fire Breath Unrelenting Force Drain Vitality	50%	25%
Legendary Dragon ^DG		Frost	75	78	4163	Frost Breath Unrelenting Force Drain Vitality	25%	50%
Serpentine Dragon ^DR		Frost	58	50	3565	Frost Breath Ice Storm Unrelenting Force	25%	50%
Serpentine Dragon ^DR		Fire	58	50	3565	Fire Breath Fireball Unrelenting Force	50%	25%

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
Name	Appearance	Lvl¹	Enc²		Shouts³	Resistances
Alduin		PC×1.2 (10–100)	10	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
Vulthuryol		50	10	3071	Fire Breath Dragon Fireball Shout	50%
Paarthurnax		10	10	905	Fire Breath Frost Breath	50%
Sahrotaar		58	10	3565	Frost Breath Fire Breath	50%
Nahagliiv		10	10	3071	Frost Breath Fire Breath	50%
Durnehviir		20	10	1821	Frost Breath Drain Vitality Soul Cairn Summon	50%
¹ Dragons have a fixed level, depending on their kind, which unrelated to the player character's own level. ² New types of dragons can be encountered once the player character reaches a certain level. ³ Dragons have unique shouts resembling Fireball and Ice Storm spells, although the damage values differ.

Alduin – The first-born son of Akatosh. He resurrects the dragons throughout Skyrim so that he may feast on the souls of the dead and the living. One of the black dragons. He is also called the "World Eater."
Durnehviir – An undead dragon who resides within the Soul Cairn in The Elder Scrolls V: Dawnguard. He was tricked by the Ideal Masters into staying in the Soul Cairn by agreeing to watch over Valerica until they harvested her soul. As an immortal, Durnehviir took the deal, not realizing Valerica was also immortal.
Krosulhah – A dragon found outside of Nchardak after completion of "The Path of Knowledge" in The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn.
Kruziikrel – A dragon encountered during the quest "At the Summit of Apocrypha" in The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn.
Mirmulnir – A dragon that attacks the Western Watchtower of Whiterun, and the first dragon to be fought and slain by the Dragonborn.
Naaslaarum – A Revered Dragon that can be encountered in the Forgotten Vale during the quest "Touching the Sky" in The Elder Scrolls V: Dawnguard.
Nahagliiv – Encountered near his burial site just outside Rorikstead. At the start of "Alduin's Wall," the Dragonborn can witness this dragon's resurrection at his burial mound.
Odahviing – Alduin's right hand dragon, Odahviing, was captured by the Dragonborn and then was pledged allegiance to him in return for his freedom. He can be called to aid of the Dovahkiin by using the Call Dragon shout. One of the few red dragons.
Paarthurnax – Leader of the Greybeards and follower of The Way of The Voice, Paarthurnax was part of the cause for thousands of deaths but betrayed Alduin and helped in the original "defeat." He can help the Dragonborn meditate on certain words of power.
Relonikiv – A dragon encountered during the quest "At the Summit of Apocrypha" in The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn.
Sahloknir – An incredibly old Dragon with the ability to breathe both fire and ice, was resurrected by Alduin only to be killed shortly after by the Dovahkiin.
Sahrotaar – A Serpentine Dragon encountered during the quest "At the Summit of Apocrypha" in The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn.
Viinturuth – A dragon that has been observed speaking in native tongue to other dragons. This dragon can be randomly encountered while wandering Skyrim. After completing "The Throat of the World," the Dragonborn can witness Alduin resurrecting this dragon from his burial site west of Anga's Mill.
Voslaarum – A Revered Dragon that can be encountered in the Forgotten Vale during the quest "Touching the Sky" in The Elder Scrolls V: Dawnguard.
Vuljotnaak – Encountered near his burial site north-west of Bloated Man's Grotto, southwest of Sleeping Tree Camp, and south of Broken Fang Cave. Was being resurrected by Alduin when encountered. Can be found after completing "Diplomatic Immunity."
Vulthuryol – A dragon encountered underground in Blackreach, underneath Alftand. To trigger this dragon attack, the player must use the Unrelenting Force shout on the massive orange globe hanging above Blackreach.

Unique dragons

Unique dragons
Name	Appearance	Lvl	Enc		Shouts	Resistances	Notes
Skeletal Dragon		20	10	500	Frost Breath Unrelenting Force	50%	Dragon who is literally a living skeleton; it lacks muscles, flesh and organs.

Black Dragon: See: Alduin
Red Dragon: See: Nafaalilargus and Odahviing
Undead Dragon: See Durnehviir

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:

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.

Dragon Riding

Dragonborn-trailer-21 — The Dragonborn takes to the skies.

Main article: Dragon Riding

Dragon Riding is a feature added in The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn 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 soldier being eaten by a dragon 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

Achievements

	Dragon Soul Absorb a dragon soul
Points	10
Trophy

	Dragon Hunter Absorb 20 dragon souls
Points	20
Trophy

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's 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.
Dragons were said to have been ruled by the Tsaesci and flew west to Skyrim.
Dragons cannot be soul trapped for the obvious reason.
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.

Bugs

This section contains bugs related to Dragons (Skyrim). Before adding a bug to this list, consider the following:

Please reload an old save to confirm if the bug is still happening.
If the bug is still occurring, please post the bug report with the appropriate system template 360 / XB1 , PS3 / PS4 , PC / MAC , NX / PS5 , XS , depending on which platform(s) the bug has been encountered on.
Be descriptive when listing the bug and fixes, but avoid having conversations in the description and/or using first-person anecdotes: such discussions belong on the appropriate forum board.

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. 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 the dragon landed sometimes they will be stuck on the ground when he had a 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 dying. 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* PC , 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. 360 After killing a dragon, a miscellaneous quest to "Return to Esbern" appears. However, speaking to him does not complete the quest.

Appearances

The Elder Scrolls: Arena (mentioned only)
The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (mentioned only)
The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (mentioned only)
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (as aspect of Akatosh)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- The Elder Scrolls V: Dawnguard
- The Elder Scrolls V: Dragonborn
The Elder Scrolls Online (mentioned only)
- The Elder Scrolls Online: Orsinium (Skeleton)
- The Elder Scrolls Online: Dragon Bones (Bone Dragon)
- The Elder Scrolls Online: Elsweyr
- The Elder Scrolls Online: Scalebreaker
- The Elder Scrolls Online: Dragonhold
The Elder Scrolls: Legends
The Elder Scrolls: Blades

References

↑ There Be Dragons

[There_Be_Dragons-1] There Be Dragons

[1]

Creatures and Enemies (The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)
Animals	Ants Bear Cave Bear Chicken Cow Deer Dog Elk Fox Goat Hawk Horker Horse Ice Wolf Mammoth Mudcrab Rabbit Sabre Cat Salmon Skeever Slaughterfish Snow Bear Snow Fox Wolf
Creatures	Chaurus Frostbite Spider Frost Troll Giant Hagraven Ice Wraith Spriggan Troll
Daedra	Dremora Flame Atronach Frost Atronach Storm Atronach
Undead	Corrupted Shade Dragon Priest Draugr Ghost Magic Anomaly Skeleton Subjugated Ghost Wisp Wispmother Vampire
Animunculi	Dwarven Centurion Dwarven Sphere Dwarven Spider
Dragons	Dragon Blood Dragon Frost Dragon Elder Dragon Ancient Dragon Skeletal Dragon