How are dragon eggs created?

[MediocreIndigo]

This is a silly question but I've been wondering for a while now how dragons reproduce. We know that they lay eggs, but what exactly triggers this? Hraesvelgr has a brood which means he had to have had dragonets at some point, but the only mate we ever hear about him taking is Shiva, who was an Elezen and wouldn't have been able to reproduce with him. This leads me to wonder if dragons reproduce asexually. Then again, we also hear about the Meracydian dragons being descendants of Tiamat and Bahamut, so I can't be sure. The fact that dragons don't seem to have an incest taboo (Tiamat and Bahamut were brood-siblings as well as mates) makes me even more confused as to how their reproduction works. Is there some bit of lore I'm missing here?

[Enkidoh]

It's a little unclear, but it seems dragons are indeed asexual and reproduce by a form of parthenogenesis (self-fertilization of an egg without requiring a male), something which cetain real world Earth reptiles and birds have actually been observed to be capable of from time to time. Given that dragons' souls (and by extension, their conciousnesses) are contained within their eyes (which are less orcaular organs and more like giant crystals), and that they are exceptionally long lived, it kind of makes sense they would reproduce this way.

Hence why they apparently take siblings as consorts, because its not actually sexual but merely platonic, they forge strong bonds with each other based on their parental ties accordingly.

But nothing is really known for sure - given their extraetheirysal nature, no wonder their physiology and reproduction are outright alien.

[JepMZ]

Dragons lived there for multiple eras. I'm sure he already had kids with his sister out of necessity by the time he fell in love with Shiva thousands of years later. It would make sense that regular sex occurs because the the 7 broods look completely different which would mean there would have been a need of DNA variation thru sex. Asexuality would only produce clones.

As for the brood thing, it could just be their culture. They choose which eggs they want and take care of it themselves as a single parent regardless of gender. They don't share parental duties. They're supposed to be a powerful race, their culture could be a mentor-apprentice relationships and not a nuclear family one

[KageTokage]

The dragons being asexual wouldn't necessarily be an obstacle to diversity as it's been noted that in line with their alien natures they're extremely adaptable and will rapidly evolve throughout their lives to suit their environs and lifestyle despite seemingly all of them starting off as diminutive winged whelps.

[MediocreIndigo]

That's interesting. If they actually do reproduce this way, wouldn't that mean they're all technically the same sex? That would make them kind of like the dragons in Drakengard who have no biological sex but still take on gender identities.

[Kranel_San]

Don't think much into it.

[Slatersev]

They actually talk about this a fair bit during Stormblood's Dragoon quest line.

And the answer is actually both. Dragons can reproduce asexually or they can conceive with a partner.

Orn Khai, the baby dragon we spend the questline helping talks about how his name translated into dragon means "One born of Sorrow" because his father had him alone while mourning that his consort Faunehm, a child of Nidhogg had to leave him and flee far across the world to get away from his song of war, so they couldn't conceive there children together.

[MediocreIndigo]

That's interesting.

[Vyrerus]

They're like Ridley Scott's Xenomorph (Starbeast in early drafts). They can have sexy queens/kings that lay the eggs with some sorta unexplained sexy times. Orrrr they can turn out eggs on their own, such as when the singular Xenomorphs do that to people in one of the Alien movies.

As far as their appearance goes, it's been revealed by Endwalker that getting enough aether and aether of a certain purity results in appropriate dragon babies. Otherwise they come out lookin' like tiny Vouivres. However, instead of being born supremely adapted for flight as that's what vouivres are said to be in dragon terms, they're malformed, lacking proper scales and are inherently hostile. If they don't be all dang ole stillborn in their mushy goopy egg plasm.