They did appear before Skyrim, infact it's heavily obvious from just the main story alone that this is the case.

Mettaricana wrote: »

All the dragons are more or less dead being brought back to full life unlike necromancy by alduin aside from a few still living sealed away or hiding ones if talking eso closest I'd say we could maybe fight a dragon by some made up dubgeon with one hidden in it by zos wishes

actually all the dragon looking daedroth (like final boss in elden hollow) are actual dragons transformed by molag bal.

Acrolas wrote: »

They're all hiding in shame because Bethesda called them dragons instead of wyverns.

That gets an awesome

To the OP:
Most of the Dragons in Tamriel have been hunted to near extinction due to the invading Akaviri Dragonguard near the end of the first Era. Only a handful like Paarthurnax and Mirmulnir escaped and went into hiding.

However, dragons can only be slain by a Dovahkiin. So when Alduin returned in the 4th Era, he was able to bring them back to live. That's how they returned.

So yes, it is possible that there might be a few dragons still around during the time of ESO. But if we get to see one, that'll depend on Beth/ZOS and it will most likely be a trial boss or smth like that, not a common sight in the wilds like in Skyrim

As others have said, dov (dragon race name) are immortal. They exist, have existed, and will exist with only one exception. Kynereth (sp?) Pitied the moreals under dov rule and alongside parthunax taught humans to shout, helping them "kill" dov.

Kill is in parentheses because to fully kill off a Dov, you need to actually remove its very essence, its soul. Only a dragonborn, a mortal blessed by the gods, is able to do this.

When Alduin was defeated, it was not by stronger mortals than he. He actually killed one of his attackers outright. One of his assailants used an elder scroll to send Alduin elsewhere in time. They thought to banish him, and at least buy mortals time.

And yes, the recent invasion by Akaviri had many dov "slain". They will be brought back by Aldrin eventually, but for now almost every last Dov is "dead", in burial mounds across skyrim.

Nothing, however, stops ZOS from adding one as a remote, well hidden Dov as a one off thing. Trial boss sounds good.

Oh and as @AzuraKin said, the Titans were spawned from a single dragon Molag Bal captured and transformed. After transforming one, he was able to form more from azure plasm. (See in game lore book from COA II, near the titan boss on the left hand side of the arena).

LOL CAN PEOPLE JUST GIVE UP ON DRAGONS??

IM SEEING THIS WAY TOO OFTEN NOW, PUT YOUR SKYRIM DISK ON AND GO FIGHT DRAGONS OVER THERE!

SirIronclad wrote: »

For all we know there may always be dragons around on Akavir, which lays east of Tamriel.

Doubt it. Considering the reason the Akaviri Dragon Guard is called the Akaviri Dragon Guard is because they are renowned dragon slayers, there probably aren't many dragons left in Akavir. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Blades

The history of the Blades stretches back many centuries, to the Akaviri Dragonguard. They relentlessly hunted dragons in Akavir, and in 1E 2703 they invaded Tamriel to continue this crusade. They marched through Morrowind and Skyrim with little resistance until being met by the united forces of Cyrodiil under Reman I at Pale Pass, in the Jerall Mountains. As soon as they heard Reman's voice at Pale Pass, they knelt before him and proclaimed him Dragonborn, claiming he was what they had come to seek. These new additions to his army did much to enable Reman's conquest and unification of most of Tamriel to found the Second Empire. However, the Dragonguard had not forgotten their original mission, and they continued hunting dragons, particularly in Skyrim, with great success. Dragons were driven nearly to extinction in the next two centuries, and the Dragonguard operated chapters across Tamriel under the direct command of the Dragonborn emperors. Unfortunately, as the Dragonguard had not yet evolved into the espionage specialists that were the Blades, they failed to prevent Emperor Reman III's assassination by the Morag Tong in 1E 2920. The Dragonguard was officially disbanded after this ignominious event, with many members becoming mercenaries and later forming the Fighters Guild. Others went on to ensure the martial and mystical arts of old Akavir would survive into Second Era, and became known as Dragon Knights. Unofficially, some were retained by the Akaviri Potentates, now as a covert force rather than an honor guard. Others continued hunting the wary surviving dragons in Skyrim until at least 2E 373. Later, during the long Interregnum, in the absence of any true emperor to protect, they protected his Ruby Throne in the Imperial City from the petty warlords rampant in Cyrodiil. Some would-be emperors formed their own personal 'Dragonguard', although these were only imitations of the Akaviri, not a continuation. It is speculated that the real Dragonguard may have sought out and protected potential Dragonborn, including the future Tiber Septim, in a bid to place one on the throne

UrQuan wrote: »

Except that we know that the dragons in Akavir were hunted down and killed (as much as it's possible for a non-dragonborn to kill a dragon anyway: in other words they could be brought back by Alduin) long before the dragons of Tamriel were hunted down and killed. We know this because the Akaviri invaded Tamriel as part of their quest to exterminate dragons, after having already wiped them out in their home continent.

Who knows, there's a lot of missing information. Do you understand the term "Akaviri" as "men from Akavir"? If that's the case then one has to wonder how that many ended up in Akavir in the first place and also managed to withstand the other races and dragons living there.

no joke. dragons appeared in daggerfall and redguard. as well as dragonish (the language of dragons,) was spoken in daggerfall.

UrQuan wrote: »

No. Akaviri means peoples from Akavir, not men from Akavir. In this case in particular it was the Tsaesci who were known to have been on a crusade to kill all dragons in all lands. They're the ones who invaded Tamriel in their hunt for dragons, and they're the ones who initially formed the Akaviri Dragonguard.

Interesting. Where can I read more about that?

SirIronclad wrote: »

UrQuan wrote: »

No. Akaviri means peoples from Akavir, not men from Akavir. In this case in particular it was the Tsaesci who were known to have been on a crusade to kill all dragons in all lands. They're the ones who invaded Tamriel in their hunt for dragons, and they're the ones who initially formed the Akaviri Dragonguard.

Interesting. Where can I read more about that?

uesp.net is a good place to learn a ton about TES lore (as well as game-specific stuff). It's a wiki and it includes full text of pretty much every book that has appeared in any TES game (and those books are the source of most of the lore).

It's very much worth noting that all books from TES games are written from an in-universe perspective, which means that you have to treat them in the same way that you'd treat real-world sources. So the author obviously is limited by what they know about the subject, and you have to take into account likely biases, whether it's a primary or secondary source, and whether there's supporting physical evidence (in a real world context this would typically be archaeological evidence - in this context it would be events that we have actually witnessed in-game). Many people make the mistake of taking everything they read in an in-game TES book as absolute fact, which simply doesn't work (especially when there are different books which directly contradict each other). There's almost nothing in TES lore that is absolutely certain - it's pretty much all varying degrees of "probably true". Including everything I've said in this thread, of course.

Edit: by the way, when I answered "No." in my previous post I didn't mean "No, there isn't a lot of missing information" or "No, it's completely certain that all dragons from Akavir were killed by the Akaviri", I was specifically answering the question of whether I understood Akaviri to mean "men from Akavir".

UrQuan wrote: »

uesp.net is a good place to learn a ton about TES lore (as well as game-specific stuff). It's a wiki and it includes full text of pretty much every book that has appeared in any TES game (and those books are the source of most of the lore).

I'm frequenting that wiki quite a bit and it's rather well done. I've just never stumbled across the idea that the Akaviri Dragonguard consisted of Tsaesci.

UrQuan wrote: »

The invasion of Tamriel by Akaviri hunting dragons was made up either entirely or primarily of Tsaesci. This invasion force was the force that submitted to Reman I and formed the Akaviri Dragonguard (at least initially - I highly doubt that Tsaesci remained the majority of the Akaviri Dragonguard throughout the rule of the Reman emperors, but I've never seen any evidence to say for sure either way).

That's really interesting. Could you lead me to some sources covering that?

Has no one else mentioned how the Dragons used to rule over early Men practically as Dictators? It's mentioned so many times in ESO alone. Dragon Priests were Men specially selected by Dragons to act similar to the Emperor's Governors in Star Wars. The very reason behind the action of banishing Alduin forward in time was the War where the races rose up against the Dragons (with the aid of a few dissenting Dragons such as Paarthurnax).

There's also a side quest in southwest Grahtwood where you stop the Worm Cult at a Mass Grave, the importance of doing so is later realized when you learn it's the Mass Grave of several Dragons.