Who are the Dragon Priests?

[missingno]

Who are the Dragon priests?

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Due to the epic proportions of the game and large array of quests in Skryim, you may not actually encounter a dragon priest during your time exploring the vast dungeons and plains.

I for one played the game for over 100 hours before I accidently bumped into one of these and when I found out it had a unique, magical and cool looking mask, I just had to find out more about these strange enemies.

So, what are these foul demons? Apparently, according to the book 'The Dragon War' it says, regarding the first people to set foot in Tamriel:

"Certain scholars believe these primitive people actually worshipped the divines as we know them, just in the form of these totem animals. They deified the hawk, wolf, snake, moth, owl, whale, bear, fox, and the dragon."

And so the existence of the Dragon priest began, long before the events of Skyrim. It goes on further to say that these Dragon priests ruled over men with an iron fist:​

"For dragons, power equals truth. They had the power, so therefore it must be truth. Dragons granted small amounts of power to the dragon priests in exchange for absolute obedience. In turn, the dragon priests ruled men as equals to the kings."

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It later reveals that when man rebels against these forceful rulers, it was the Dragon war that resulted. Armies fought the Dragon priests as well as the Dragons they worshipped. A few dragons sided with man, teaching a few the Thu'um, or the dragon shouts as we know them, so that man could fight the Dragons.

Eventually man succeeded and ruled themselves, but of course the Dragon priests were not exterminated completely:

"The war was long and bloody. The dragon priests were overthrown and dragons were slaughtered in large numbers. The surviving dragons scattered, choosing to live in remote places away from men. The dragon cult itself adapted and survived. They built the dragon mounds, entombing the remains of dragons that fell in the war. They believed that one day the dragons would rise again and reward the faithful. "

Now we move onto present day within Skyrim and the Dragon priests guard the Word Walls, defending the techniques that can defeat the Dragons so that none can learn them.

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(Several masks of the Dragon priests. Each can be worn and possesses different abilities.)​

In the game of Skyrim there are eight Dragon priests. Each has a powerful mask that boosts certain attributes such as magical damage or archery. Upon defeating a Dragon priest you can loot the mask from the corpse and then wear it, harnessing its power.

A true adventerur can even go as far as acquiring the entire collection and then take them to the Dragon priest shrine found at Bromjunaar Sanctuary, right next to the entrance to Labrynthian. Placing all the masks on the shrine will reward the player with a 'special' mask.

It should also be mentionned that each Dragon priest is equipped with a very powerful staff. Collecting these is fun too and extremely useful for the mage type players.

So now that you know the story of the Dragon priests, perhaps it's time to set out on a new adventure and see if you can defeat them all!

Post in the comments describing your encounters with the Dragon priests, I'd love to hear some stories!

Sources:
[The Dragon War/Skyrim book] The Dragon War - The Elder Scrolls Wiki
[Dragon priests wiki page] Dragon Priest - The Elder Scrolls Wiki

 

[ShadowMage]

Nice job. A well written article for sure.

 

[multireaper97]

awesome atricle ive only discovered one priests morkokei and it was a hard battle especialy since my follower was getting downed in 2 hits buy him and i was only level 11 with a few cojuration spells the first healing spell and firebolt

 

[Gorthal]

Wait so you played 100 hours without doing the main quest? Because you bump into a Dragon Priest near the end of it.

 

[Flint firestorm]

Seems pretty good, I think perhaps you should do another article on how to battle each one in particular

 

[missingno]

Yup i was doing civil war and all the guild quests before the main quest line.

 

[nordicowboy]

I have one problem with this article...it ended too soon! Extremely interesting topic and well written on top of that. Too bad Bethesda doesn't have more personal info on individual priests. Bravo sir.

 

[Serebro Moniker]

Ah, an article on my favourite enemies in the game. Great article.

 

[Wolfy]

I just got the ninth dragon priest mask and its awesome P.S those picture are awesome especially the first one .

 

[ShadowMage]

I'll just say, the ebony mask is my favorite.

 

[Salamander]

What's the final mask? o3o

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[ShadowMage]

I don't know. UESP will know, though.

 

[Rayven]

I believe the author of the article was trying to limit the spoilers in the article so the specifics on the last mask were not included.

Here is the UESP link ShadowMage alluded to if you'd like the specific information:

Skyrim:Konahrik - UESPWiki

 

[Abraxus76]

**SPOILER**






















The final mask is inside Labyrynthian

 

[simzy]

I find that if you have finished the game going around fighting with no armour as it is highly enjoyable and it increases your skills much faster, also if you are an orc no point in waering armour or having amazing waepons if you can just kill them in a couple of hits. I also have complete the game 3 times and find it great if you mix it up a bit by finding gliches in the game or typeing in a few codes to make it fun, but i am curently a orc warrior who can turn into a werewolf . that is all for today good bye. B-)

 

[Punz]

And now I have a new goal. Here I come Dragon Priests.

 

[Jackofclubs84]

Great job on the artical, Too bad there isn't more information on them. My first priest was Kross and his powerful stick of fireball, Took me forever to beat him and then I ran into Morkokei during the college questline where he decided to zap me into Oblivion lol

 

[inbetweendimensions]

These dragon priests are more than interesting, and I have collected about 6. Took a long time too. I was completely into the story behind Rahgot, and what he did to his cultists. Makes me wonder about all the other priests, particularly Krosis, the loner. He's the only one without a consecutive crypt, wonder why?

 

[George Alderman]

when i stumbled on krosis at shearpoint, i nearly pissed myself! i do not know how, at level 20 i managed to kill the priest in one try without losing my partner! now im stronger and i kill them very quickly! that is a very interesting backstory on them thanks

 

[Punz]

Just finished collecting all the Dragon Priest's masks. What an adventure! Without this article, I wouldn't have looked twice at the Priests. Thanks.