Almost every culture on earth dreamed up the dragon independently, which tells you something. It is the shape our fear and our awe take when we imagine a power far older and greater than ourselves. The dragon can be the apocalypse on wings or the truest friend a lonely kid ever had, and the genre is built on that double edge.
Slay it, ride it, bargain with it or become it. However a story uses its dragon, the creature is always the part you remember.
Essential dragons
The fire-breathing canon
Monster, mount, or mirror
The dragon plays three roles. It is the hoarding terror to be slain, the loyal mount that lets a hero fly, or the ancient intelligence that knows more than any human. The richest stories let it be more than one at once.
Dragons on film
Smaug, Toothless and the great wyrms
Dragons on TV
From Westeros to Berk
Games let you do the thing every dragon story promises: actually face one, or actually ride one. Few boss fights or first flights land like a well-made dragon.
Dragons you play
Slay them, ride them, or become one
Dragons on the page
The novels that built the modern dragon
On the page is where dragons grew their personalities, from Tolkien's vain, gold-mad Smaug to the bonded companions of modern fantasy.
More worlds where magic has a body count
Epic Fantasy
Explore the Epic Fantasy guide →We keep dreaming the same winged shape because some part of us needs there to be something out there bigger than we are.