Is there a lore explanation for the mini Dragon pet?

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Dragonling maybe? We know Dragons don't breed.

Enodoc

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

OtarTheMad

Yeah. How did he have no soul? That's odd to me unless he did something similar to Durnehviir and lost it somehow but that was not mentioned.

Enodoc

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Yeah. How did he have no soul? That's odd to me unless he did something similar to Durnehviir and lost it somehow but that was not mentioned.

Yeah quite. Their soul is an essential part of them being a dragon, and like a Dragonborn is "granted" the soul of a dragon by Akatosh, the dragons themselves are the spawn of Akatosh, and would endemically have Dragon souls as a result. The only reason Durnehviir doesn't have a soul any more is because he sold it to, or had it stolen by, the Ideal Masters (the same as any necromancer).

MythicEmperor

Enodoc wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Yeah. How did he have no soul? That's odd to me unless he did something similar to Durnehviir and lost it somehow but that was not mentioned.

Yeah quite. Their soul is an essential part of them being a dragon, and like a Dragonborn is "granted" the soul of a dragon by Akatosh, the dragons themselves are the spawn of Akatosh, and would endemically have Dragon souls as a result. The only reason Durnehviir doesn't have a soul any more is because he sold it to, or had it stolen by, the Ideal Masters (the same as any necromancer).

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Skeletal_Dragon_(Skyrim)

To quote Todd Howard: “It just works.”

elias.stormneb18_ESO

Enodoc wrote: »

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

As @MythicEmperor mentioned, there's a skeletal dragon in Labyrinthian in Skyrim. As no dragon soul can be absorbed from it; I'd assume it's a similar case to the dragon in Fang Lair. Exactly how that works isn't really known; but I'm pretty sure it will be explained in the game.

MythicEmperor

elias.stormneb18_ESO wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

As @MythicEmperor mentioned, there's a skeletal dragon in Labyrinthian in Skyrim. As no dragon soul can be absorbed from it; I'd assume it's a similar case to the dragon in Fang Lair. Exactly how that works isn't really known; but I'm pretty sure it will be explained in the game.

Yeah. Whatever the case, it existed in Skyrim, so the lore is on its side.

elias.stormneb18_ESO

With a bunch of animal bones and a knack for necromancy, it probably wouldn't be too hard to create a small skeletal "dragon".

Rohamad_Ali

I knew @Enodoc would not be pleased with that explanation . lol

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Enodoc wrote: »

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

I missed that part, when did they say it? But if it's just reanimated bones with no soul, that's easy enough - someone else could have eaten it. The bones in Skyrim don't evaporate when the Last Dragonborn eats the owner's soul, so our 'friend' in Fang Lair might have just run afoul of Miraak or another, more powerful Dovah.

Enodoc

MythicEmperor wrote: »

elias.stormneb18_ESO wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

As @MythicEmperor mentioned, there's a skeletal dragon in Labyrinthian in Skyrim. As no dragon soul can be absorbed from it; I'd assume it's a similar case to the dragon in Fang Lair. Exactly how that works isn't really known; but I'm pretty sure it will be explained in the game.

Yeah. Whatever the case, it existed in Skyrim, so the lore is on its side.

Yeah sorry, I wasn't clear with my issue. There's nothing conceptually wrong with skeletal dragons, or even skeletal dragons with no soul, as both of these have been seen before with the dragon in Labyrinthian. My issue is over the statement that it seemingly never had a soul, and that this lack of a soul was specifically related to the Dragon War. If they want a skeletal dragon with no soul, that's fine, but if they want to explain why it has no soul, they should be using the established lore that a dragon loses its soul when killed by another of dovah-sos. A dragon literally cannot exist as a dragon without its "essence of dragon".

Edit: i.e., basically what WhiteCoatSyndrome said above.

tyjoie

Enodoc wrote: »

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

Labyrinthian had a skeletal dragon that can't be explained by conventional reasoning surrounding dragons.
As for the mini dragon pet, that should not exist.

Enodoc

tyjoie wrote: »

Enodoc wrote: »

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

Labyrinthian had a skeletal dragon that can't be explained by conventional reasoning surrounding dragons.
As for the mini dragon pet, that should not exist.

As I mentioned above, Labyrinthian's dragon is conceptually easy, despite not being specifically stated. It was killed by a dragon or dragonborn, its soul was absorbed by them on death, and its body was later reanimated (somehow). This is why it has no soul when you kill it.

Equally, while young dragons do not exist, I don't think anyone has proven that small dragons cannot exist.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

@Enodoc The dataminers dug up a picture and judging by the name it's a construct. So it looks like we're good, lore-wise.

Elebeth

@Enodoc I'm pretty sure they said that he didn't have immortal soul, not that he didn't have a soul. So it sounds like they are retconing/adjusting/whatever the lore so that the Alduin was the one granting dragons immortality.
Which doesn't explain the "either side" part of the story.
Weird anyway...

Xvorg

Enodoc wrote: »

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

We have had Brass Gods in TES lore... I don't see why a bone dragon couldn't be activated using the Mantella, for example

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Found the bit where Mike Finnegan was talking about it (at 9:40):

Here's the transcript as best I could manage:

...Thurvokun did not side with Alduin or Paarthurnax during the Dragon War and flew off on his own, did not do that. So he did not have an eternal soul, so when he came in here laid waste to everything he could eventually die. So...that's what caused him to actually die at the end.

That does appear to be a problem from a lore standpoint. I'll note that I have been unsuccessful finding a group on PTS to run the dungeons with, nor have I found a Youtube video yet that has the NPCs loud enough to make out what they were saying, so I am uncertain if anything in either dungeon provides some explanation for the above.

Enodoc

WhiteCoatSyndrome wrote: »

Found the bit where Mike Finnegan was talking about it (at 9:40):

Here's the transcript as best I could manage:

...Thurvokun did not side with Alduin or Paarthurnax during the Dragon War and flew off on his own, did not do that. So he did not have an eternal soul, so when he came in here laid waste to everything he could eventually die. So...that's what caused him to actually die at the end.

That does appear to be a problem from a lore standpoint. I'll note that I have been unsuccessful finding a group on PTS to run the dungeons with, nor have I found a Youtube video yet that has the NPCs loud enough to make out what they were saying, so I am uncertain if anything in either dungeon provides some explanation for the above.

I haven't either, but some other guys on UESP have. Apparently there's nothing about this in there at all. It sounds like Mike was pulling unsubstantiated lore out of thin air.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

Enodoc wrote: »

I haven't either, but some other guys on UESP have. Apparently there's nothing about this in there at all. It sounds like Mike was pulling unsubstantiated lore out of thin air.

I suppose he is the Dungeon master not the Lore master.

Konstant_Tel_Necris

Enodoc wrote: »

Forget the mini dragon, I'm more concerned about the skeleton dragon who had no soul. That's literally not how dragon souls work. And it certainly isn't based on who they sided with in the Dragon War.

Perhaps, Orryn the Black cannot control soul of dragon Thurvokun with necromancy, summon it from Aetherius because such power beyond mortals?
So he binds his own soul to dragon remains and posses old dragon bones with own spirit, in such case reanimated dragon was an construct, similar to Bone Colossus like Brothers of Strife or Bone Lord, sure dragon bones have some residual power, what Orryn used against Vestige in same way as Thallik Wormfather, merged with Sinmur and used his powers.

Fang Lair you can see another of Orryn experiments of merging souls and remains of two individuals Ulfnor and Sabina Cedus, there also some interesting books about problems of reanimating unhuman beings and beasts in particular.

So our small skeletal dragon pet is just model what was used to test necromancy ritual by Orryn, simple construct made of various bones of lizards and birds.