Unlike the mortal races of Hydaelyn, dragonkind is extraterrestrial in origin. Millions of years ago, they thrived on a distant world known as the Dragonstar. They were a proud, majestic, and deeply spiritual race whose lives spanned millennia. However, their peaceful existence was shattered when their planet was invaded by the Omicrons—a highly advanced, cybernetic civilization seeking to conquer and catalog the universe's strongest lifeforms.
The resulting interstellar war devastated the Dragonstar. Realizing that his home world was completely lost to the mechanical onslaught, the great dragon patriarch, Midgardsormr, gathered seven celestial eggs—his unborn children—and fled into the vast, dark expanse of space.
After wandering the cosmic void for centuries, Midgardsormr finally arrived on the Source (Hydaelyn). Exhausted and seeking sanctuary for his remaining offspring, he encountered the mother crystal, Hydaelyn.
The planet’s will granted the dragons refuge under one strict condition: Midgardsormr and his kin would serve as guardians of the Silvertear Falls in Mor Dhona, a vital nexus where the planet's font of aether was concentrated. Midgardsormr accepted this sacred vow, wrapping his massive body around the waters of the lake to slumber and watch over the world while his seven eggs hatched, marking the birth of the First Brood.
The direct offspring of Midgardsormr are known as the First Brood. They are primordial beings of immense power, completely unique in appearance, and capable of generating their own broods asexually. Through their life choices and migrations, they shaped the history of two major continents on the Source.
The eldest of the First Brood, Bahamut and Tiamat, traveled south to the tropical continent of Meracydia. Bound by a deep spiritual companionship, they sired a vast horde and lived in relative peace for generations.
This peace ended during the Third Astral Era when the technologically dominant Allagan Empire launched a brutal invasion of Meracydia. Bahamut was slain defending his home. Consumed by unfathomable grief, Tiamat was approached by the Ascians, who manipulated her love into performing the world's first primal summoning. She brought forth an immortal, twisted shade of Bahamut.
The Allagans managed to subdue and capture this Primal Bahamut, trapping him within the orbital satellite Dalamud to serve as an eternal solar battery. Tiamat herself was bound in neural cages on Azys Lla, where she spent thousands of years in self-imposed imprisonment out of guilt for desecrating her mate's memory.
These three sibling wyrms chose to remain in Eorzea, settling among the jagged peaks of Dravania.
For centuries, they coexisted with the early Elezen mortals. Hraesvelgr even fell deeply in love with a mortal woman named Shiva. To bypass the tragic reality of their differing lifespans and seal their souls together forever, Shiva willingly allowed Hraesvelgr to consume her. This profound act inspired a two-hundred-year era of unprecedented peace and cooperation between dragons and humans, culminating in the construction of the magnificent city of Zenith.
However, human greed brought an end to this golden age. Learning that a dragon's eyes held boundless, god-like aetherial power, King Thordan I and his Twelve Knights betrayed the dragons. They ambushed and brutally slaughtered Ratatoskr, tearing out her eyes and consuming them to gain supernatural strength.
Witnessing his sister's horrific murder, Nidhogg was consumed by absolute, blinding hatred. He launched an immediate retaliatory war against the treacherous Elezen, slaughtering King Thordan. Though Thordan's son, Haldrath, managed to tear out both of Nidhogg's eyes during the battle, Nidhogg's vengeful spirit refused to die.
Hraesvelgr, mourning his sister but bound by his eternal love for Shiva, refused to take part in Nidhogg's genocide. However, out of a misplaced sense of grief and familial loyalty, he surrendered one of his own eyes to Nidhogg. Armed with Hraesvelgr’s eye, Nidhogg sustained his life force and orchestrated the Dragonsong War—a brutal, cyclical conflict against the nation of Ishgard that lasted for a thousand years, designed purely to make Thordan's descendants suffer for generations.
The youngest of the First Brood, Vrtra, migrated east to the island nation of Thavnair. Recognizing that mortals feared the terrifying presence of giant dragons, Vrtra chose to govern from the shadows.
He formed a secret pact with a trusted line of Au Ra rulers, establishing the guise of a mortal ruler called the Satrap. Vrtra acted as the hidden protector and true ruler of Radz-at-Han, speaking through a lifelike magitek homunculus. Under his hidden guidance, Thavnair grew into a prosperous, multicultural hub of alchemy and commerce where humans and dragonkind lived together in harmony.
During the Third Astral Era, Azdaja acted as Vrtra’s fiercely protective older sister. When the Allagan Empire opened a massive voidgate to the Thirteenth Reflection to harvest voidsent soldiers, Azdaja valiantly flew into the rift to close it from the inside, trapping herself in a dying world of darkness. For millennia, she was held captive by the powerful voidsent warlord Golbez, who drained her aetherially concentrated eyes to fuel his dark ambitions.
Dragons possess a distinct biological and spiritual makeup that makes them entirely different from any mortal race on Hydaelyn.
A dragon’s eyes are not merely sensory organs; they are the literal wellsprings of their soul and an incomprehensible amount of aether. Even a single eye from a member of the First Brood contains enough magical energy to power floating continents, sustain an immortal soul without a body, or fuel the summoning of catastrophic primals like Shinryu.
Dragons do not experience senescence or die of old age. Instead, they grow continuously throughout their lives. As they age, their physical forms undergo dramatic mutations influenced by their environment, emotional state, and personal worldview. A dragon that spends centuries consumed by hatred and war will develop jagged, weaponized scales and dark coloration, whereas a dragon residing in peace may develop softer features, feathers, or shimmering, luminous scales.
Dragons communicate using Dragonspeak, an ancient, resonant language where words carry heavy emotional and aetherial weight. Because of their immense spiritual power, higher-ranking dragons rarely need to speak aloud to their kin. They can project their thoughts, memories, and emotions telepathically across vast distances.
A sufficiently powerful dragon can unleash a resonant roar known as "The Call of the Sire." This roar acts as a compelling mental command that can override the free will of younger dragons, forcing them to join a horde and obey their sire's emotional directives.
Because the founding nobility of Ishgard consumed the flesh and eyes of Ratatoskr, her potent dragon aether became permanently intertwined with the genetic bloodlines of the Ishgardian people.
Consequently, if an Ishgardian mortal consumes the blood of a dragon, the latent draconic essence within their own veins reacts violently. This triggers a horrific, painful metamorphosis, physically reshaping the human body into a Dravanian dragon. This transformation strips away the mortal's human identity, binding their mind permanently to the localized will of Nidhogg’s vengeful horde.