I was wondering if it was possible to fight Dragons without starting the main quest. I'm curious to know because I'm not sure if I can complete the Alteration Ritual Spell quest without starting the main quest. I tried going to Dragon Lairs as described in http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Dragon_Lairs but no Dragons appear. All help is appreciated.

You only encounter dragons after you kill the dragon attacking the whiterun watchtower. After you have completed that quest, dragons will spawn, too much for most people too.

EDIT: The quest is Dragon Rising

Which "main quest" are you referring to?
If you mean Main Quest as in all Main Quests, you've already completed the first Main Quest which was Unbound.
On a related note, after I completed Dragon Rising and before I started The Way of The Voice, I accidentally passed through Shearpoint and killed a Dragon there.

PS. The Skeletal Dragon, through my knowledge, is the only Dragon that does not give you a Dragon Soul.

So it's not possible to complete the Alteration Ritual Spell quest without starting the main quest?

This. Also, if you like the unrelenting force dragon shout and want to unlock it's full strength you will have to play the main quest until after you've returned the horn of Jurgen Windcaller to the Greybeards. Once your "training" with the Greybeards is complete you're pretty much free to go around killing dragons and snatching up words of power/dragon souls from all over Skyrim.


What are you talking about?

edit: Nevermind. I googled and figured out that you need to find a dragon's corpse for this quest. So yeah, it seems like you have to kill the dragon that attacks the tower near Whiterun to do this quest properly.

The one that triggers Dragons as random spawns I guess. My most recent main quest is the Bleakfalls Barrow quest that I have not completed and Dragons don't spawn randomly... or anywhere for that matter. You can pretty much walk up to Word Walls in "Dragon Lairs" and it's fairly undefended...

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Alteration_Ritual_Spell

You need to get Dragon Heart Scales from Dragons... o.o ...

Looking at the quest, i'm almost certain that you'll have to complete the Dragon Rising MQ Quest, as there are no dragons until that quest. I assume the questgiver just won't give you the quest, even if you meet the Alteration requirement

Oh but he did... and I got Kahvozein's Fang. I thought maybe the quest marker might then point to a Dragon but it did not. So I'm kind of stuck with it in my inventory because I can't drop it (Same with the 25 encumbrance Dragon Stone ... :sadface:).

The skeleton dragon isn't even a Dragon.He is an undead.And no you can only start killing dragons after starting the main quest at Dragonsreach.

I do not know the answer to this question, will also wait for a response
I didn't even know there's a Main Quest that triggers Random Dragon Encounters. Would love to know this also.

Are all Word Walls guarded by a Dragon? I'm actually only 20 hours into the game and just finished The Way of the Voice, lol. Would be great to know if I should go for Slow Time & Fire Breath Word Walls now if there's not gonna be any elite enemies guarding them.

Even though those quest items say they way 'x' pounds, they do not, they're weightless so it's not that bad. But they unfortunately disorganise your inventory until you get rid of them.

If you start, but do not complete, "A Blade in the Dark" (ie. ditch Delphine at the inn after getting the horn from her and taking it to the Greybeards), the dragons will peter out. They'll stop spawning after a while until you advance the MQ further.

Once you accompany Delphine to Kynesgrove and see what happens there, there may be Dragons anywhere.

Really? That's ... interesting to say the least.